A LAME REPLY.

Colonist, Volume LVI, Issue 13487, 5 June 1914, Page 5

A LAME REPLY.

Sydney, .Tune 4

The Premier, Mr. W. A. Holman, referring to criticisms of his remarks'on the Empress of Ireland disaster, said that it did not require expert knowledge to understand the fact that the ship, moving slowly, was run down by another ship moving in the same direction. There was no head-on impact, no full-speed smash into an iceberg, as in the case of the Titanic. If the skill of the naval architect cannot guarantee under these circumstances that a ship will float for half an hour after she is struck—if no such things as watertight compartments or buoyancy chambers are known in naval architecture, the sooner the fact is proclaimed the better. Passengers must be made aware by directors of shipping companies that impact with another ship overtaking theirs will be followed by almost instantaneous destruction. Then perhaps it will be insisted upon that ships shall not travel in fogs with 1500 lives on board, and their extreme delicacy of structure will be recognised, and murderous risks will not be taken.