Page 214 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 27 - 31

whether that is so or not. But I quite agree with the Attorney-General that the importance of this Enquiry is to ascertain whether the practice is one which must be altered. The importance of this Enquiry has to do with the future. No Enquiry can repair the past. Sir Robert Finlay: If your Lordship pleases, that observation of mine, if it is well founded, very much strengthens the effect in my favour of the whole of Mr. Rostron’s evidence. At question 25541 he says: “If it is a perfectly clear night, and I was sure of my position and everything else, unless I knew there was a lot of ice about, I should feel perfectly justified in going full speed.” Then, my Lord, there is one other observation I may be permitted to make. I put it to the Court that there is nothing in what I have read of Mr. Rostron’s evidence - and I have read everything in the least material on this point - that it all qualifies the body of evidence to which I have already called attention. And further than this, the question is negligence on the part of Captain Smith. One consideration that can never be dismissed from the mind is this: I do not ask that Captain Smith should not be found to have acted negligently if the evidence shows it; but one can never dismiss from one’s mind the fact that he is not here to give the reasons. I am sure the Attorney-General will agree that that is a most cogent observation, and must turn the scale in this case. The Attorney-General: Quite. The Commissioner: You may be quite sure that I shall be most careful. I shall require the negligence to be proved so that I cannot escape from it. (After a short adjournment.) The Commissioner: There is one question and answer in Captain Rostron’s evidence I want to draw your attention to, Sir Robert, Question 25465, at page 743. Sir Robert Finlay: “So that, if I follow what you have said, you would always have to be prepared for an iceberg which presented a dark appearance to those who were looking out for it? - (A.) Yes.” If that means that black bergs are common, I think it is wrong, but I do not think Captain Rostron can have meant that. I may say that Captain Rostron, as appears from the American evidence, had not been much on the Atlantic. My friend, Mr. Maurice Hill, has been good enough to supply me with references to the American evidence. He was appointed to the “Carpathia” on the 18th January of this year, 1912. The “Carpathia” was in the New York and Mediterranean trade, which, of course, involved crossing the Atlantic. Then in the American evidence the same gentleman appears as commanding the “Carpathia” and the “Pannonia” during 1911; that is Mediterranean and New York in the same way. Then previous to that he says, “I was Captain of several other smaller cargo boats running between Liverpool and the Mediterranean.” The Commissioner: Well, you do not come across icebergs there. Sir Robert Finlay: No, your Lordship will see that that was in answer to a series of questions put to the witness by the Attorney-General. He had previously given two answers to your Lordship which were perfectly specific and distinct. One is at the bottom of page 742, Question 25450. Your Lordship said to him: “You cannot account to me for your seeing some of these bergs a couple of miles away, but not seeing this particular one till it was about a quarter of a mile away? - (A.) No. (Q.) You cannot account for it? - (A.) No. (Q.) It happened to yourself? - (A.) I cannot account for it at all.” Then at the top of the next page, Question 25455 “Is that a common experience, that when you are amongst icebergs you will detect one two or three miles away and another not till it is within a quarter of a mile? Is that within your experience? - (A.) No, I do not think it is common experience. I think it is rather uncommon, as a matter of fact.” I think the answer must really refer to this: Your Lordship will recollect it is in evidence already that where an iceberg has been torn off from the parent iceberg, if I may use the