Page 248 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 14 - 18

Mr. Rowlatt: My Lord, a passenger certificate certifies that the requirements of the Act have been complied with. It states the limits beyond which the steamer is not fit to ply, and the number of passengers which she is fit to carry, distinguishing, if necessary, between the different parts of the ship. The Attorney-General: Your Lordship has the abstract in the little buff book, and you will find that at page 9 of the Act. The Commissioner: “Issue of passenger steamer’s certificate”? The Attorney-General: Yes. 19814. (Mr. Rowlatt.) Was the “Titanic” also made to comply with the American Immigration Laws? - Yes. 19815. We know that the steam was supplied from six independent sets of boilers and that there were reciprocating engines and a turbine engine also? - Yes. The Commissioner: Mr. Rowlatt, I have had handed up to me a descriptive statement of the “Titanic.” It comes from Harland and Wolff, I understand. Have you a copy of it? Mr. Rowlatt: I am examining from it, my Lord. I purpose in parts to amplify it slightly and in parts to pass very lightly over it. The Commissioner: I should like you to put it in. Mr. Rowlatt: If your Lordship pleases. The Commissioner: Unless there is some correction to be made in it. 19816. (Mr. Rowlatt - To the Witness.) Did you prepare this descriptive statement? - With assistance. 19817. Is it correct as a whole? - Yes. I wrote most of it myself, but, of course, the information had to be collected by many people. 19818. Of course, but so far as you know it is, on the whole, correct? - Yes, certainly. Mr. Rowlatt: Put it in, my Lord, but I will ask a few questions about it, and if at any part of it I seem to be going too much into detail, your Lordship will check me. The Commissioner: Are you going through it page by page? 19819. (Mr. Rowlatt.) Yes, my Lord, I am now on page 2. (To the Witness.) You said something about the American Immigration Laws. Can you tell us what they are at all? - A particular requirement of the American Immigration Laws that has to be complied with is the question of area provided for each third class passenger, each immigrant into the United States. That is considerably in excess - something like 20 percent, in excess of the British Board of Trade requirements for emigrant passengers - which has to be provided and allotted to the third class passengers. That is the principal point. Other points in connection with the American Immigration Laws are covered by the reciprocal Treaty which acknowledges the British Board of Trade Certificate as the equivalent of the American inspection which would otherwise be carried out. 19820. The next paragraphs of your Report deal also with the boiler sections, but I think we know all about that. Then we come to the main electrical machinery. Perhaps you might explain a little about that. You say that the main electrical machinery is in a section which is abaft the turbine engine room, as shown on the plan? - Yes. 19821. And you also say there are two emergency dynamos up at the top above the turbine engine room - two decks above the turbine engine room? - Yes, on D deck, above the top of the bulkheads. 19822. Where did those dynamos get their steam from? - They had a special pipe, provided from three of the boiler rooms. They had also a cross connection to this pipe, so that any steam reaching the special part of the engine room from any boiler of the ship could be passed along to them by opening two or three valves. 19823. Is that true of both the engines? - Yes, of both the emergency dynamos.