Page 146 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 27 - 31

The Commissioner: Then you do not require to refer to anything else, if this has got everything to do with it. Mr. Edwards: "The Board of Trade may make regulations as to the performance of their duties, and in particular as to the manner in which surveys of passenger steamers are to be made." The Commissioner: Well? Mr. Edwards: You have pursuant to that, the Regulations issued by the Board of Trade for the survey of the hull, equipment and machinery of steamships; and on page 8, section 16 of those Regulations you have a provision made as to circumstances under which declarations are to be made: "An efficient and watertight engine room and stokehold bulkhead, as well as a collision watertight bulkhead, and an after-watertight compartment, to enclose the stern tube in each screw-shaft, should be fitted in all sea-going steamers, both new and old, and in the absence of any of these the case must be specially referred to the Board of Trade before a declaration is given. As regards other bulkheads, although a thorough subdivision of the ship is desirable, the surveyors should not for the present refuse to grant a declaration because these are not fitted." Below that you have paragraphs (3) and (4), which have been deleted, and there is substituted for those paragraphs the provision in Circular 1401. The Commissioner: Where is that to be found? Mr. Edwards: It should be inserted in your copy. The Commissioner: I have it now. Mr. Edwards: Circular 1401 is: "Instructions to Surveyors, dated February, 1907. Amendment to Clause 16 of the Regulations and Suggestions as to the survey of the hull, equipment and machinery of passenger steamers. Delete third and fourth paragraphs," and so on: "In all sea- going steamers coming under survey for passenger certificate for the first time, the following requirements regarding the height of the bulkheads should be complied with. The collision bulkhead is in all cases to extend to the upper deck." This is, I think, sufficient to show what is required of the surveyors of the Board of Trade. May I say at once that if your Lordship's view be that nothing of this kind is actually enforceable - The Commissioner: How do you mean "enforceable"? Mr. Edwards: I mean enforceable by the Board of Trade. I am addressing myself to the quite specific point which your Lordship was putting to me as to how I show that any of the requirements of the Board of Trade could be insisted upon, and I was seeking to do that by, first of all, referring your Lordship to that section of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, which clothes the Board of Trade with certain powers, and I was then seeking to show that, pursuant to those powers with which that section clothes the Board of Trade, the Board of Trade had issued a certain Regulation, and now particularly I was calling attention to that Regulation. The Commissioner: But it is not Section 724 which authorises the Board of Trade to issue directions. Mr. Edwards: Yes, my Lord, Regulations - sub-section (3). The Commissioner: They may appoint surveyors; they may alter their remuneration; they may make regulations as to the performance of their duties, "and in particular as to the manner in which surveys of passenger steamers are to be made." Now, where are the regulations? Mr. Edwards: In the document to which I have called your Lordship's attention. If your Lordship will look at that buff-coloured document, it is called "Regulations and suggestions as to the survey of the hull, equipment and machinery of steamships carrying passengers." The Commissioner: Can you tell me what the expression "suggestions" means, because I am quite at a loss to understand? "Regulations" I understand; what are "suggestions"? Mr. Edwards: That I do not know, my Lord. The Commissioner: It occurs to me - I do not know whether I am right - that Regulations are something different from suggestions.