Page 149 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 14 - 18

seen. The Attorney-General: That is so, my Lord. The Commissioner: That is right, is it not? Mr. Scanlan: I do not think it is, my Lord. The Commissioner: Well, two could not see it - three could not see it, because there was a man on the bridge - and according to him they could not see it because it could not be seen; therefore, it seems to me to follow that if you put 50 men on the look-out they would not have seen it. Mr. Scanlan: I wish to recall this to your Lordship’s recollection. One man saw it - that is the man in the crow’s-nest, Fleet. The Commissioner: He saw it when it was too late. Mr. Scanlan: He stated to your Lordship that if he had had glasses he could have seen it in sufficient time to have made the difference. The Commissioner: I know. At present my opinion about glasses, and I may tell you at once (I may have to change it) is that they are intended to examine things which the eyesight has already picked up. Mr. Scanlan: Yes, my Lord. The Commissioner: That is my notion about binoculars. Mr. Scanlan: That is exactly the position I am instructed to take up, but in the evidence of Fleet, what he said in America and what he said here practically - he was not the most communicative witness we had. The Commissioner: Who was this? Mr. Scanlan: Fleet, the man who looked at us all - the suspicious man. The Commissioner: Yes, I remember. Mr. Scanlan: He said in America that when this object was first sighted by him it was about the size of two tables. What he said to me on that point was that it appeared a very small object. Sir Robert Finlay: But he also said that the moment he saw it he reported it as an iceberg. Mr. Scanlan: I do not know. Sir Robert Finlay: Yes, he did. Mr. Scanlan: What I submit is that a man of this kind - The Commissioner: What kind? Mr. Scanlan: Like Fleet, a man in Fleet’s position would not report this as an iceberg until he had looked at it for some time, and if he had had glasses when the small object appeared to him he could have decided earlier that it was an iceberg, and given warning. The Attorney-General: He says he did report directly he saw the object. The Commissioner: These men in the crow’s-nest were to ring three bells directly they saw anything ahead. The Attorney-General: He says he did. The Commissioner: They were not to stop to look at it through glasses or do anything of the kind. What they were to do was to ring a warning bell and report what they saw. Mr. Scanlan: In any case if your Lordship is not with me on that point, let me emphasise this; the people on the bridge did not see the iceberg at all. The man in the crow’s-nest did. It might be that if the look-out had been doubled, and if there had been a man on the bows that he could have seen it. The Commissioner: Well, you were crying in aid Lightoller, and my notion of the effect of Lightoller’s evidence is that no number of men on the look-out would have made any difference. Mr. Scanlan: He was not asked the question, like that, my Lord. The Commissioner: No, he was not. The Attorney-General: That is his evidence. The Commissioner: That is what his evidence comes to. I will not say what I think of Mr.