The Star. MONDAY, APRIL 22, 1912. THE TITANIC.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10441, 22 April 1912, Page 2

The Star. MONDAY, APRIL 22, 1912. THE TITANIC.

It is evident'that the special comniit-

te ■ set up by the United States Senate is carrying oat a drastic investigation of tho facts of the Titanic disaster. Its first care has been to take the evidence of the surviving officers and members of the crew. Later on, of course, an official inquiry will have to be held in the Old Country and until the sworn evidence has been taken no attempt can be made to attribute the blame for the catastrophe to individuals. But one or two facts stand out clearly and impressively. It is apparent, in the first place, that the life-sav-ing appliances were dreadfully inadequate. The most trustworthy accounts of the wreck agree that there was sin-gularly-little in the shape of confusion or panio when the vessel first struck. The passengers would be alarmed, of course, but the conditions of sea and weather would speedily reassure them. They were on a huge liner that they believed to be unsinkable, and Lady Duff-Gordon tells us that the passengers realised the danger so little thjit they jested with one another even when the boats were being launched. In these circumstances it ought to have been possible to save a far larger proportion of the passengers and crew, and there is no room for doubt that if there had been sufficient boats virtually every man, woman and child on board could have been taken off the sinking ship. In the panic of a wreck boats are liable to be rushed, capsized or swamped, and loss of life will occur in that way, but if there had been a full equipment of boats and rafts on the Titanio the saving of the* passengers

would have proceeded, on the whole, in an orderly fashion. Probably as the last boats were being lowered and as the two thousand remaining passengers and crew saw the chance of life slipping away from them there was a panic, but the reports show plainly that there was sufficient time for the work of rescue if only the life-saving work had been properly organised. Members of the Titanio's crew declare that they had had no boat drill during the voyage. It may be doubted whether the crew would even be familiar with their appointed stations. It is customary to prepare a roll of the officers and crew assigning to each his proper post in the event of fire or wreck, but we have yet to learn that any special organisation of this kind had been carried out on the Titanic. The voyage appears to have been made, as voyages are so often made, on the assumption that no peril would be encountered. Lady Duff-Gordon asserts- that on the evening of the wreck she had been watching the icebergs in the vicinity of the ship; and, if this is the case, the collision becomes more puzzling than ever. It seems probable, however, that the look-out reported a berg some distance ahead, that the ship was steered with the object of avoiding the danger, and that her bottom was ripped on a shelf of ice of which no indication was seen above water. An iceberg shows only a small proportion, about one-eighth, of its bulk, and every shipmaster knows that the dagger to be dreaded in the neighbourhood of ice is the invisible one, not the visible one. Yet the Titanic was sent ahead at twenty-one or twentytwo knots an hour, not far short of her full speed. These are the two points to be emphasised the shortage of lifesaving equipment and the speed of the vessel in the vicinity of ice. Of course the disaster has compelled ship-owners to take immediate precautions for the saf'ty of passengers on the Atlantic voyage, but it should not have needed the loss of a magnificent liner and the sacrifice of sixteen hundred lives to teach us lessons that ought to have been obvious.