THE 'TITANIC' INQUIRY.
-UNLESS those who have been granted the right to repre- sent certain interests at the Titania ' inquiry refrain from extending the investigation by excursions into matters Which are only remotely relevant to the sinking of the ship, the whole inquiry will suffer an unnecessary deterioration in value. It may be said that the President should refuse to admit evidence that does not fit in with his terms of reference. But it is much easier to ask for such a restriction than to impose it. A piece of evidence which may be perfectly appro- priate incidentally involves a personal charge against some of the passengers or the officers of the ship, and then it is only fair to allow the persons on whom reflections have been cast to put themselves right if they can. An inquiry into a wreck is very different from a Royal Commis- sion on some social or political subject, and different, again, from a case in the law courts, where the ordinary rules of what is admissible as evidence may be adhered to without the possibility of doing serious injustice. In the Titania' inquiry, however, any one of the survivors may suddenly find his name associated with some disagreeable story of callous- ness or selfishness. or become the victim of some gross innuendo; and the injustice is real if he is not given an opportunity to " go into the box " himself. It is obvious that Lord Mersey has tried to check the irrelevant and personal details, and has yielded only so far as he felt that fairness required him to do so. The fault is unquestionably with those who represent the various interests. Some of these gentlemen appear to be much more intent on proving, by any sort of verbal trick and trap, that the first- class passengers had the privilege of saving their lives at the expense of the third-class passengers, or that the White Star Company was indifferent to the welfare of its seamen, than on helping Lord Mersey to say exactly why so many lives were lost and how such a tragedy may be avoided in future.
No sensible person needs to be told that the investigation of the charge against Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff-Gordon occupied a quite disproportionate time. Yet as the reputation of these persons seemed to be at stake, Lord Mersey was no doubt right, in this case as in others, in letting their answer be given with reasonable fulness. But the conspicuous absurdity of turning the inquiry into a, court of honour nevertheless remains. One sees Lord Morsey's compunctions and sense of fairness in conflict in such a passage as this :- "Mr. Scelmert asked a question concerning an article in the New York American, and the PRESIDENT asked whether it had any bearing on the inquiry.
Mr. So/max.—Yes, a considerable bearing.
The PRESIDENT.—Because the whole of this incident has only a small bearing on this inquiry, and I do not want too much time taken over it.
Mr. Duns, M.P., intimated that he was going to ask that Lady Duff-Gordon should be called.
The PRESIDENT.—I was in hopes that we need not. Mr. DUKE.—I think your Lordship must. The PRESIDENT.—Oh, if you want it done !
Mr. Deltic—Most urgently. Lady Duff-Gordon thinks it essential that it should be done.
The PRESIDENT.—Oh, if the lady desires it— Mr. Duan.—The position in which she is put by some of the insinuations made is intolerable."
We should all probably have given way in Lord Mersey's place, yet every one can see that the evidence as to the Duff- Gordon incident is of no public value. One reads with disgust such an extract as this from the examination of Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon by Mr. Harbinson :— " Was it in answer to this suggestion as to the direction the boat should go that you said, will give you a fluor' P—I really do not understand your question. You must put it plainer. My question is this—that you heard this observation as to the direction the boat should go, and that then, twenty minutes after the Titanic' sank, you said you would give them a fiver P—I see your meaning now. The man calling out had no effect whatever as to the direction the boat should go.
Tho PRESIDENT.—If you put your question plainer it would be understood better. Your question really is this : Did you promise .C5 in order to induce the men in the boat to row away from the drowning people ? ' That is what you meant to ask. Mr. HAIIBINSON.—That is the effect of it.
The PRESIDENT.—Why did you not put it in plainer words P" That is surely a masterpiece in the art of being willing to wound and yet afraid to strike. Even those who so unfairly persecuted Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff-Gordon must have known the truth, that though the occupants of No. 1 boat did not behave heroically they did not behave differently from the manner in which human beings frequently behave when they find themselves in a sudden dangerous crisis that paralyses thought. Soldiees and bluejackets are drilled in order that in an emergency their action may be correct even when it is mechanical Habit does duty for judgment. But the occupants of No. 1 boat had had no such drill. They were apparently overpowered by the strange and bewildering events. Sir Cosine Duff-Gordon said that he did not even know that there were not enough boats for all the passengers. We can easily believe that. People go to sea with so strong an assumption that an accident will not happen that they do not trouble to ask themselves how much room there is in the boats. There are thousands of people accustomed to make voyages to America, India, or Australia who never found out till the `Titanic' was wrecked that ships of more than 10,000 tons do not carry boats for all the passengers. When the passengers of the' Titanic' were • being embarked they certainly did not visualize, as we do now, the acute problem of the excess of passengers over boat-room. Then, through all the evidence one sees the assertion recurring that No. 1 boat ought obviously to have gone " back " to the
spot where the ship had sunk. Heroic men would have done their best, no doubt, to pick up the passengers in the water, but the idea that it was quite a simple matter to go " back " and that Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon could have insisted on doing so is probably a mistake. Those who are not accustomed con- tinually to observe their position at sea generally lose all sense of direction in a boat, and would certainly do so at night. When the ' Titanic had disappeared, and No. 1 boat had drifted a little, her occupants probably had not the remotest idea whether she was pointing, north, south, east, or west, and could not have said in what direction they had last seen the ' Titanic.' For a man unused to the sea a touch of the oar in a boat con- fuses all the points of the compass. There were the cries of people in the water, of course, but if these did not last long it is possible that some of those in the boats did not know where they came from. In any case Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon was not in command of his boat.
One understands from experience how quickly time passes in circumstances of stress. The wise and cool thoughts come afterwards, but time may be fatally wasted while men have lost all sense of its passage. To us who were not in the 'Titania' it seems strange, for example, that no attempt was made, so far as we know, to improvise rafts. Even if the passengers did not suppose that the Titanic' would sink the officers probably knew, and we imagine that the resources of the ship were not unequal to turning out during two and a half hours several rough rafts made by lashing together pieces of timber or wooden furniture. We see clearly enough now that it was only a question of keeping people out of the freezing water for a few hours till the first ship summoned by wireless telegraphy arrived. But perhaps the majority of the ship's company let the time slip by as in a dream. As for the alleged preference of the first-class passengers to the third-class, we suspect that the order of embarkation was not in the least premeditated, but was determined merely by the fact that the first-class passengers were nearer to the deck from which the boats were lowered. If any one persistently believes that a woman in the third- class who asked to be taken into a boat would have been refused he has a lower opinion of the officers of the merchant service than we have.
We trust that there is now an end of futile innuendo. An irregular outburst of applause in the court on Monday indi- cated that the feeling of the public was outraged by the improper use of the inquiry, and particularly by the pre- posterous persecution of Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff-Gordon. If this indignation is widely enough expressed the type of counsel who has provoked it will in future be found not less enthusiastic in respecting it.
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