LESSONS OF THE TITANIC.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 94, 20 April 1912, Page 4

LESSONS OF THE TITANIC.

A strange confession haa come from Mr. Sydney Buxton, President of th« Imperial Board of Trade. A cable message yesterday gave his statement in the House of Commons that tho rule* regarding life-saving appliances on British ships had not been (revised 1894. In making come excuse for this remarkable neglect by the present Government and its predecessors, Mr. Buxton said that it had never' been the policy of the Board of Trade that vessels well equipped with water-tight compartments should necessarily carry lifeboats- to accommodate all passengers. He added .that the Titanic had been certified to carry 3500 passengers aud crew, aad the capacity of the lifeboats (twenty— an excess of four on the board's specification) was for 1178 people. The smashing and rapid sinking of the Titanic gave tragic proof that the water-tight compartments were of no avail to make up for a deficiency of lifeboats. If the steamer had carried more boats, the huge sacrifice of nearly 1600 lives might have been enormously lessened, if not obviated altogether. Since 1894 the shipbuilding industry has expanded marvellously, and the passenger traffic has grown proportionately. A Titanic was only a vague dream in 1894. Time and competition have evolved a Titanic triumph and also a, Titanic dis aster. It requires no wonderful prophet to predict, with 1 " an assurance that- the words will be verified, that the Board of Trade will not now have such implicit faith in water-tight i-ompartments, The value of this provision is. of course, too obvious to need stressing, but experience has proved that these compartments cannot guarantee huge 'steamers agauust wreckage. ■ When such a mammoth as the Titanic, with a displacement of 45,000 tons, strikes a rock or an immense ice-floe her own weight helps to hasten her I'uin. To-day's messages state that the Titanic, which was well fitted with bulkheads and water-tight compartments, sunk in less than three hours. It is plain already that' this terrible calamity mutt affect the scheme of shipbuilding in America as well as Britain, and also the (.election of route* ill d*ng«ouo n*rt« of the. pceogt