Page 173 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 23 - 26

The Attorney-General: Will you look at No. 6? Sir Robert Finlay: 6 does touch upon it. The Commissioner: Yes, it does, but I do not think 7 contemplates it. The Attorney-General: 7 was the point Sir Norman Hill was referring to - that they required certain particulars and drawings. I was referring to paragraph 7 to show that under that - and I think that is what Sir Norman had in mind - the Harland Committee did recommend certain particulars and drawings which had to be required and that apparently is what was guiding the Board of Trade. I have been enquiring about the “Mauretania” and the “Lusitania.” There is no real difference of opinion except that they were not actually rejected. What happened was that they supplied their drawings, and then they were asked by the Board of Trade to make certain calculations with certain compartments bilged, and then they withdrew their application. That is how the matter stands. The Commissioner: Then they never did come within it. The Attorney-General: They withdrew, that is all. 24729. (Mr. Scanlan.) May I take it that when your Committee decided on paragraph 6 of its Report: “That vessels divided into efficient watertight compartments to the satisfaction of the Board of Trade should be exempt from the requirements of additional boats or rafts”? - Will you go on, Mr. Scanlan? The next part is the substantial part. 24730. “The Committee suggest in this connection that the Board of Trade should review the requirements designed to attain the standards as to watertight compartments at present enforced by them under Rule 12, having regard to the developments of shipbuilding since the report of the Committee on the spacing and construction of watertight bulkheads”? - That is right. 24731. Was this considered at those two forenoon meetings of the Sub-Committee? - With regard to vessels of 10,000 tons and upwards we understood that Rule 12 was not of any practical value at all. It was a Rule under which no vessels then worked. 24732. Was not the opinion of your Committee that the requirements of the Board of Trade should be modified - lessened? - No. 24733. Made easier to qualify ships for getting the exemption given to ships regarded as efficiently divided into watertight bulkheads? - Our view was this, that the standard of buoyancy should be fully maintained. We thought that after twenty years an Enquiry should be held as to whether the particular mechanical arrangements required by Sir Edward Harland’s Committee were still the best, and we wanted that reviewed. We did not want the standard of buoyancy lowered. 24734. Did I catch you as saying just now that Lloyd’s requirements were higher in some respects? - They are different, I believe. 24735. From the Board of Trade’s? - From Sir Edward Harland’s Committee. I do not want to interject anything, but when we talk of the Board of Trade’s Standard we generally mean, I think, the standard which the vessel has to comply with in order to get her passenger certificate or emigrant certificate, and, of course, this Rule 12 has nothing whatever to do with that. It is something far and above that standard. 24736. It means a higher degree of efficiency in the watertight provisions than that which suffices to qualify a vessel for a passenger certificate? - That is so. 24736. If your recommendation had been given effect to in the case of the “Titanic,” does not it come to this, that you would have provided only for 830 people? - If the “Titanic” had passed Sir Edward Harland’s standard of buoyancy, yes, not otherwise. 24737. Did Mr. Carlisle make any suggestion to the effect that 64 boats should be provided for a ship like the “Titanic”? - No. He showed us some plans, one of which showed 32 boats, and the other was a plan of a single davit showing 4 boats suspended in the davit. 24738. Have you in the Minute, which I take it you have got with you, any reference to the