Page 73 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 27 - 31

which your Lordship has suggested - I think Questions 5, 16, 17, and 19, are those in this case which are directed to that point. We have the numbers saved, and we have this strange fact that while accommodation was provided for 1178 only 711 were saved. Then looking through the list prepared by the Attorney-General, you find the greatest disparity in going over the boats, number by number, in respect of the passenger accommodation actually provided and utilised. You find boat No. 1 with 12 people; you find No. 11 boat had 74 people. The Commissioner: What you do find is that the evidence says so. Mr. Scanlan: Yes. The Commissioner: It is quite evident that the evidence is not right, because if you have taken the trouble, as no doubt you have, to add up the numbers that are deposed to as having been in the boats, you will find that there were put into the boats and saved a great many more than ever were saved. Mr. Scanlan: There certainly is a good deal of exaggeration, but some things have come out clearly enough, and that is, for instance, with regard to No. 1 boat, that it only had five passengers and seven of the crew, and in regard to some other boats that they were properly filled. The Commissioner: Is it your contention that if there had been more lifeboats on board this vessel more lives would have been saved, although the lifeboats that were there were not used more than to the extent of two-thirds of their capacity? Mr. Scanlan: I do say, my Lord, that if there had been discipline - The Commissioner: Yes, that may be. Mr. Scanlan: And if there had been a training of the officers and crews in the manning and handling and navigation of the lifeboats, it would have been possible to have launched and lowered lifeboats sufficient to have rescued every one on that ship. We are all glad to think that there was nothing in the nature of a panic on the “Titanic,” but I think it would be blinding one’s eyes to the real facts of the case if one were to accept the view that discipline, in any proper sense of the term, was observed after the accident in the filling and sending off of these boats. The Commissioner: Now I think what you must say - you will probably agree with me - is that the facts speak for themselves, and that the evidence of the Witnesses who nearly all say that there was no panic and plenty of discipline cannot be accepted in face of the facts. Mr. Scanlan: That is my contention, my Lord. Of course, you might have panic in one sense if there had been a rush of the passengers past the officers to get into the boats; and the witnesses from the crew, and from amongst the officers, are quite justified probably in saying that there was no panic whatever in that sense, and that discipline was maintained in that way, and that the officers were respected by the members of the crew and by the passengers. But in the sense of the officers and the members of the crew realising the duty thrown upon them and the work they had to do in the circumstances of the disaster, I think I am justified in saying in that broad sense that there was a lamentable want of knowledge and want of discipline amongst the officers. The Commissioner: I want to follow you, and I want to have it clear. All the boats, except possibly one collapsible boat, were launched? Mr. Scanlan: Yes. The Commissioner: Let us leave out the one collapsible boat. And they were launched well before the ship foundered? Mr. Scanlan: Yes, my Lord. The Commissioner: So that, discipline or no discipline, the boats were got into the water? Mr. Scanlan: Yes, my Lord. The Commissioner: All of them, except the one collapsible? Mr. Scanlan: Yes. The Commissioner: The only fault, therefore, which was of any consequence, if it was a fault,