STEAMERS IN FOG.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11539, 26 November 1900, Page 4

STEAMERS IN FOG.

The decision of the Admiralty Court in the case of the New Zealand barque cut down in the Irish Channel by the Cunarder Campania is not surprising. ' It has already been laid down that steamers travelling at excessive speed through fog are responsible for any accident which may result, and the decision that even half-speed may be excessive is no departure from the principle, since one vessel's half-speed might easily be greater than another's full speed, in these days of Atlantic greyhounds. Courts must obviously deal with actual and not with relative speeds. But while this decision emphasises the liability of fast steamers it can hardly prevent them speeding. The North Atlantic is so subject to fog, owing to the passage of the Gulf Stream and other local causes, that the imperative requirements of modern transit and transport require the continual driving of. steamers through all weathers. Already the German lines have beaten the British on the Atlantic fairway and have drawn a considerable amount of British custom. Maritime nations must therefore look in other directions than speed-limiting for the prevention of accident. This will probably be found in the use of the Marconi and other wireless systems of telegraphy, which will doubtless be made compulsory in crowded waters, by international arrangement, as soon as the practicability of this

modern invention"'has' been fully demonstrated and " the facilities for its universal installation > are perfected. We may not unlikely see the time arrive when vessels can even enter a civilised port without a pilot, guided safely amid passing ships and hidden dangers by the use of the wonderful electrical appliances which modern science is rso rapidly developing. -.' '•:.:•' ■; ■■■: ■ ' '■ '■ ■ '" :