SAFETY AT SEA.
THE Convention drawn up by the International Con- ference on Safety of Life at Sea and signed on Tuesday is a document which deserves something more than a passing salutation. The full text of the Convention is not yet published, but the summary of it contained in the speech of Lord Mersey, the President of the Conference, proves the Convention to be a memorable creation. It is memorable for two reasons : first, because it will open a new era in the conduct of passenger traffic on all the oceans of the world, and secondly, because almost unani- mous international agreement has been obtained in two months on one of the most technical and complex subjects imaginable. As we all know, it is difficult to achieve a large common measure of international agreement on the most straightforward questions. When a highly controversial subject was the issue the pessimists were justified in expecting a small result "No three men belonging to the same country," they said, "can be found to agree as to what ought to be done in the matter of water-tight compart- ments and the arrangements for the stowing and launching of boats. How, then, can we expect the delegates from a dozen different countries to agree to a set of rules for universal application P" The Convention is the answer. The most unlikely thing has been accomplished, and that in no niggard way, for the proposed international code actually goes further than the recommendations of the Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee and of the Boats and Davits Committee which have been published in England since the ' Titanic ' disaster. Of course the Convention has yet to be ratified, but as there was virtual unanimity among the delegates we may assume that ratifi- cation is assured, and that the Convention will come into force in July, 1915. We offer our congratulations to the German Emperor, who proposed the Conference ; to Mr. Buxton, who acted on the proposal and secured for Great Britain the honour of being the home of the Confer- ence; to Lord Mersey, who directed the labours of the Conference ; and to Sir John Biles, M. Guernier, and all the other delegates.
The 'Titanic' disaster in April, 1912, shattered the comfortable public illusions that there was such a thing as an unsinkable ship, and that great passenger vessels carried "boats for all." The natural tendency at first was for uninstructed persons to think that a law requiring boat-room to be provided for all would prevent for ever the recurrence of such a possibility as men and women being taken down in a sinking ship because there were not enough boats. But further information showed them that the case could not be stated quite so simply. It is easy to carry enough boats ; it is quite another matter to have them at hand on the decks and in a suitable position for launching. Launching a boat in a high sea is a terribly risky business. To lower a boat from the upper deck of a large liner is like lowering it from the top windows of a high house. If the boat is full of passengers and the ship is plunging and rolling in a high sea, it may be imagined what sort of skill is required to get the boat away in safety from the ship's side. If there were many boats being flung about at the same time, the danger would be greatly increased. The recent loss of the ' Volturno ' by fire proved that boats may, in a sense, be a source of danger even when they can be launched. The passengers who lost their lives were those who took to the boats. We do not say this in order to argue that there should not be boat-room for all—we are con- vinced that there ought to be—but to point out that boats are only one line of safety, and that security at sea (never wholly attainable) depends upon careful attention to a number of details. In one wreck one thing will prevent loss of life, in another wreck another thing. At least there should be means for everyone to float off from a sinking ship at the last moment, even if there is not room for everybody in the boats. The ' Titanic ' sank in a calm sea. If only there had been more rafts a much larger number of passengers might have been saved. The requirement of the Convention is that there must be room in the boats for three-quarters of the maximum number of passengers and crew, and that room for the rest shall be provided either in boats or on pontoon rafts. Wireless telegraphy, as a matter of fact, has saved very many more lives than have been saved by ships' own boats, because it has brought other ships rapidly to the rescue. If the appliance which provides the greatest amount of all-round safety had to be named, few people would deny the place of honour to wireless telegraphy. The careful maintenance and working of the wireless apparatus is the first line of safety ; and we are very glad indeed to note the wide reach of the rules laid down on this matter. The countries which took part in the Conference wore Great Britain, Austria-Ilungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. It is interesting to notice, on political grounds, that Australia. Canada, and New Zealand were represented independently of the British delegates. We may now take the chief regulations and consider their signifi- cance. The first important point is that an ice-patrol service in the North Atlantic is to be established and placed under the control of the United States. The United States already has two ships doing patrol work, so that the assignment to her of the new responsibility is an honour well bestowed. The patrol ships, besides reporting on the position of ice and studying the streams carrying ice, will destroy derelicts. The study of the movements of ice in com- paratively southern latitudes is one that needs to be carded much farther, and much is to be hoped from this field of research. As regards the construction of ships, the requirements as to water-tight compartments are too com- plicated to be dealt with here. A high reserve of buoyancy is required, and there must be easy means of escape from each compartment when the bulkhead door is closed. It will be remembered that in the 'Titanic' some of the steerage passengers were unable to find their way out from their part of the ship. The Convention is to be capable of expansion as regards constructional regulations. Great Britain is to be the receiving house and distributor of information about new inventions, so that the Convention should keep abreast of science. As regards wireless telegraphy, which is to be compulsory for most passenger vessels, ships are divided into three classes. The first class includes vessels having on board two hundred persons or more, which have a speed of thirteen knots. In these ships a continuous wireless service is to be maintained. The second class includes all vessels, not of the first class, which carry twenty-five passengers or more. These must maintain a continuous wireless watch for at least seven hours each day, and a partial watch afterwards. The third class includes all cargo ships carrying more than fifty persons. In these there must be a wireless installation. It is further provided that all vessels in the Transatlantic trade having snore than fifty persons on board, and every vessel in other trades which voyages more than a thousand miles from land, must keep a continuous wireless watch. Before long, perhaps, the most urgent warnings will be made to signal themselves automatically. Our children, it may well be, will travel in ships in which a bell will start ringing or a red signal will appear because the receiver of the wireless installation has got notice that another ship is in the fog a few miles away, or another ship fifty miles away is in the track of ice. We have already mentioned the provision as to boat-room or raft-room for all. As large a number as possible of boats and rafts must be capable of being launched from either side of the ship. And all members of the ship's company, whether deck hands or not, may be compelled to acquire efficiency in the handling of boats. We suppose that this regulation provoked the withdrawal of the President of the American Seamen's Union from the Conference. If so, it is an instructive episode. The ritual of exclusiveness in a Trade Union comes before the safety of human life ! Finally, it is agreed that compliance with the regulations entitles a ship to an international certificate. Of course the regulations will increase tho "cost of living" for steamship companies, but wo fancy that it will not pay companies which wish to survive to ply without certificates. Thus the conditions of competition will still be equitable. We trust that the vein may last, and that loadlines and deck cargoes may soon be dealt with in a single inter- national code. It is a pleasure to compare the goodwill which has gone to the making of this remarkable Conven- tion for the care of life with the bitter wrangling which is invariably provoked by the misguided proposals for the reduction of armaments.
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