That many passenger ships could not, without great inconvenience, carry so many of the ordinary wooden boats as would suffice to carry the whole of the passengers and crew with safety in bad weather. Under such circumstances the crew would not be sufficient to man so many boats; nor could they all be got into the water in sufficient time in the event of very rapid foundering. Having regard, however, to the fact that accidents occur probably as often in moderate weather as in bad, and having regard also to the fact that the very cause of the accident frequently incapacitates many of the boats, and to the further fact that an insufficiency of boats undoubtedly tends to cause panic, we are of opinion that all sea-going passenger ships should be compelled by law to carry such boats, and other life-saving apparatus, as would in the aggregate best provide for the safety of all on board in moderate weather.
As a result of these reports, the merchant shipping (life-saving appliances) act, 1888, appears to have been passed, under which rules were made by the board of trade at different dates. The merchant shipping act, 1894, repealed the act of 1888, and substituted therefor sections 427 to 431 and the seventeenth schedule of the new act. Under this act (1894) a table showing the minimum number of boats to be placed under davits and their minimum cubic contents was issued by the board. It was dated March 9, 1894, and came into operation on June 1 of that year. This table was based on the gross tonnage of the vessels to which it was to apply, and not upon the numbers carried, and it provided that the number of boats and their capacity should increase as the tonnage increased. The table, however, stopped short at the point where the gross tonnage of the vessels reached "10,000 and upwards." As to all such vessels, whatever their size might be, the minimum number of boats under davits was fixed by the table at 16, with a total minimum capacity of 5,500 cubic feet.
But as regarded emigrant steamships there was a rule which provided that if the boats under davits required by the table did not furnish sufficient accommodation for all on board, then additional boats of approved description (whether under davits or not) or approved life rafts should be carried, and that these additional boats or rafts should be of at least such carrying capacity that they and the boats required by the table should provide together in vessels of 5,000 tons and upwards three-fourths more than the minimum cubic contents required by the table, so that in the case of an emigrant ship such as the Titanic the requirements under the rules and table together exacted a provision of 9,625 cubic feet of lifeboat and raft accommodation (5,500 feet in boats under davits with three-fourths, namely, 4,125, added). Taken at 10 cubic feet per person, this would be equivalent to a provision for 962 persons. No doubt at the time these rules were made and this table was drawn up it was thought that, having regard to the size of vessels then built and building, it was unnecessary to carry the table further. The largest emigrant steamer then afloat was the Lucania, of 12,952 tons.
In the report of the select committee of the House of Commons a reference to water-tight bulkheads had been made, which was in the following terms:
Though the question of construction was clearly not included in the reference to the committee, still they think it only right to state, after having heard the evidence, that the proper placing of bulkheads, so as to enable a ship to keep afloat for some length of time after an accident has occurred, is most important for saving life at sea, and a thing upon which the full efficiency of life-saving appliances largely depends.
This passage probably explains the insertion in the board of trade's rules for life-saving appliances of rule No. 12, which is as follows:
Water-tight compartments.—When ships of any class are divided into efficient water-tight compartments to the satisfaction of the board of trade, they shall only be required to carry additional boats, rafts and buoyant apparatus of one-half of the capacity required by these rules, but the exemption shall not extend to life jackets or similar approved articles of equal buoyancy suitable to be worn on the person.
If this rule had become applicable to the Titanic, then the total cubical lifeboat or raft accommodation which she would have been required to carry would not have been more than 7,562 (equivalent to accommodation for 756 persons). It did not, however, become applicable for the owners never required the board of trade to express any opinion under the rule as to the efficiency of the water-tight compartments. The Titanic, in fact, carried boat accommodation for 1,178 persons, a number far in excess of the requirements of the table and rules, and therefore no concession under rule 12 was needed. Speaking generally, recourse to this rule (12) by shipowners has been so insignificant that the rule itself may be regarded as of no practical account.
The foregoing rules with the table were laid before Parliament in the usual way, and so received the required statutory sanction.
After 1894 steamers were built of a much larger tonnage than 10,000, the increase culminating in the Titanic, with a gross tonnage of 46,328. As the vessels built increased in size, one would have thought the necessity for increased lifeboat accommodation would grow; but the rules and table remained stationary and nothing was done to them by way of change. The explanation of this long delay (from 1894-1912) was given before me by Sir Alfred Chalmers, who had served under the board of trade as nautical adviser from 1896 to August, 1911. He is now retired. I think it will be well if I give his explanation in his own words. He says: