Page 212 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 19 - 22

22640. I am referring to any kind of ship for the moment? - The responsibility is totally different with different ships. I must ask you to confine your questions to one particular class of ships. 22641. So far as the Board of Trade is concerned it is a universal responsibility, is it not? - No. If you will tell me what sort of ship you are referring to, I shall be able to answer you quite precisely. 22642. Will you tell me what is the distinction in the responsibility of the Board of Trade in the giving of a declaration as to a ship -? - What sort of ship? 22643. Will you kindly follow me, Sir Walter, and allow me to complete my question so that you will then be able to answer. Will you kindly explain what is the difference between the responsibility of the Board of Trade in regard to the declaration in the case of a ship which is not an emigrant ship and in the case of a ship which is an emigrant ship? - Certainly. In the case of an emigrant ship the Board of Trade has, in the most minute way, to make itself responsible for the fitness of the ship to go to sea. Not only her seaworthiness and her equipment of every kind, but even her medical stores; and the clearance is refused unless the officer is absolutely satisfied in every respect that she is fit to go to sea. That is in the case of an emigrant ship. 22644. What happens in the case of a non-emigrant ship? - In the case of the next class, the passenger steamer - The Commissioner: No, no. 22645. (Mr. Clement Edwards.) Surely Sir Walter, you could not have appreciated the point, or I did not make myself clear. It is a responsibility that is imposed upon the Board of Trade in all cases? - What is a responsibility? 22646. The giving of a declaration before a ship may proceed to sea? - Certainly not. 22647. Will you now explain what is the position in the case of a ship which is not an emigrant ship? - That is precisely what I was doing when you interrupted me. I said that in the case of a passenger steamer the Board of Trade have a declaration from their shipwrights’ Surveyor, their engineering Surveyor, that that ship is fit to carry passengers - so many passengers. That is a totally different thing from an emigrant ship. No examination of the ship is made before she goes to sea unless there is some reason to believe that she is unseaworthy. She has her declaration; that authorises her to carry passengers, to have so many boats for these passengers, and so on, but no clearance is required unless there is reason to believe that she is unseaworthy. 22648. I put this to you: Can any sort of a ship proceed to sea from this country without a declaration or an authority from the Board of Trade? - Certainly. 22649. What sort of a ship can? - Any kind of a ship but an emigrant ship. 22650. Do you suggest, Sir Walter, that any registered English ship can leave a port of this country without an authority from the Board of Trade? - Certainly. 22651. Do you know the form called the A.A. form? - That is with regard to emigrant ships. 22652. Only? - Only. 22653. Is it not a form for every ship which signs on its crew in this country? - That is the Customs form you are referring to. 22654. I am referring to the Board of Trade. Have you an A.A. form there? - No, I have not. I do not remember quite what it is, but I do know that the Board of Trade have no power to stop a ship unless she is unseaworthy, and that the only ships they clear - 22655. That is not what I am putting to you. The certificate of the Board of Trade is taken as tantamount to a declaration that she is seaworthy, is not that so? - That means that no question has been raised. I should like to have the form before me. 22656. This is the point I want to get to, Sir Walter, that there is no other body in this country except the Board of Trade which accepts and discharges the responsibility of permitting the ship to go to sea in a state of supposed seaworthiness? - I believe the Board of Trade is the only body.