Page 173 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 19 - 22

boats on each side; it is double. 22344. (The Attorney-General.) Where there is ample opportunity for providing boats on each side sufficient to carry the number on the ship, the Board of Trade does provide by its Rules that on each side there shall be a sufficient number of boats? - Is not that a justification of what I said just now? 22345. (The Commissioner.) Pray do not begin to argue? - Oh, no, I do not want to. 22346. (The Attorney-General.) That is what you mean now? - Yes. This is a defection from the tonnage basis to the basis of lives on board. The Commissioner: Is this the principle upon which they go - that where you have an emigrant ship it is impossible to provide sufficient boats for all the people on board if you are to have proper regard for the stability of the ship and the working of the ship? The Attorney-General: Yes. 22347. (The Commissioner.) But where you have a cargo boat on which there are few people you can easily, and therefore must, provide sufficient boat accommodation for everyone on board? - Double that. The Attorney-General: In that particular case it is double. The Commissioner: That is to say, a sufficient number on each side to accommodate everyone on board? The Attorney-General: Yes, that is the principle. The Commissioner: Therefore, so far as the lifeboats are concerned a man is safer upon a cargo ship than upon an emigrant ship? The Attorney-General: Yes. The Commissioner: And of necessity, as this Committee thought, because they thought you cannot put on an emigrant ship the number of boats that are required to save everybody? The Attorney-General: Quite. The Commissioner: Without interfering with the navigation of the ship. The Attorney-General: Quite. Might I add to that, your Lordship has in mind, no doubt, a very important consideration, that when you are dealing with passenger and emigrant ships that come in the first class you will have the best skill and the best means of guarding against the sinking of the vessel if your watertight compartments are efficient. The Commissioner: You will have the greatest degree of floatability. The Attorney-General: Yes, and the greatest number of precautions taken, so far as they can be, apart from boats. The Commissioner: That is what, at any rate, the gentlemen who framed those Rules thought at that time. The Attorney-General: Yes. Sir Robert Finlay: And I think it is carried out in the first three classes also by providing that they need not carry the number shown on the Table on declaring that the boats they have are sufficient for all on board. The Attorney-General: Which is that? Sir Robert Finlay: Division A, class 1 under B. The Attorney-General: “(F.) Provided nevertheless,” do you mean? Sir Robert Finlay: No. “Master or owners of ships claiming to carry fewer boats,” etc. The same thing occurs in class 3. 22348. (The Attorney-General.) (F.) really embodies it: “Provided nevertheless that no ship of this class shall be required to carry more boats or rafts than will furnish sufficient accommodation for all persons on board.” (To the Witness.) As I understand it, Sir Walter, that has been the guiding principle ever since that Committee sat and the original Rules were framed, with amendments and improvements. That has been the principle up to the present date? - Yes,