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was submitted to Sir Walter Howell? - Yes. 24270. Can you tell me why this Report was not acted on? - No, Sir. The Commissioner: Was Sir Walter Howell asked about this Minute? The Attorney-General: Your Lordship will remember how it stands, if I remind you. This is all a matter that precedes the reference to the Committee on the 4th of April, 1911. Several Reports were obtained - four altogether - and Mr. Archer’s was the one that made the biggest demands on the vessel. Your Lordship will remember that I said we would have all four of them printed. Then those Reports were referred to the Committee without the tables being sent at all; the Committee had to decide for themselves, and they reported in July. The Commissioner: Forgive me for asking you, but what did Sir Walter Howell give as a reason for doing nothing upon those four reports? The Attorney-General: He would not agree that they did nothing. On the contrary, what they did was to get the Reports in February, 1911, and thereupon they are discussed and considered, and the result of them is that they differ - those four Reports, as your Lordship will see; and the consequence was that the whole matter was referred to the Advisory Committee, which is constituted under the statute. The Commissioner: And then came the Report. The Attorney-General: Then the Committee upon the 4th April, 1911, had the Reports before it had the matter referred to it in the letter of reference, and in July of 1911 the Committee reported. Your Lordship will remember that the Reports had dealt with a figure of 8,231. The Commissioner: That was the Report Mr. Carlisle signed. The Attorney-General: Yes, that is how it stood. The Commissioner: That was the 8th of July, 1911. Then they began to act upon it, or did move in regard to it in March, 1912, was not it, or February? The Attorney-General: No, they acted upon it long before that. There was a series of experiments made, it appears, from the evidence of Sir Walter Howell and Captain Young. There were various things enquired into. One thing which was exercising them particularly was as to whether it was necessary to deal with the proportion of depth to breadth, upon which a good deal appears in the Memorandum that has not been read in detail; and experiments were made upon boats by, amongst others, Captain Clarke, the last Witness who was called, and in the result, in March, 1912, there is a Minute of Captain Young’s of the 28th March, I think it is, and then there th is another one on the 30 March; and then on the 4th of April, 1912, Sir Walter Howell gives directions as to the letter that is to be written. The Commissioner: The letter is dated the 16th. The Attorney-General: The letter is, in fact, dated the 16th, but that was cleared up by the reference to the Minute. The way the evidence stands is that none of these four Reports went before the Committee. Rightly or wrongly, what was thought right was to refer the matter without including these tables. The Commissioner: There was what you might call a skeleton scale. The Attorney-General: Yes, but it did not fill in any of the details. The Commissioner: In order that they might exercise their own judgment and make a scale of their own. th The Attorney-General: Yes. That is how the evidence stands till the 30 March, 1912, and then later on there is a scale which does go before the Committee. Mr. Scanlan: I am anxious, of course, to have it made clear that this Report, this Minute, was not submitted to the Advisory Committee. The Attorney-General: Certainly not - neither that nor the other three Reports. The Commissioner: None of the four was submitted. 24271. (Mr. Scanlan.) In your capacity of Principal Ship’s Surveyor, were the plans for the boating of