The Loss of the S. S. Titanic: Its Story and Its Lessons Part 6

Of course there are difficulties in the way of drafting international regulations: many governments would have to be consulted and many difficulties that seem insuperable overcome; but that is the purpose for which governments are employed, that is why experts and ministers of governments are appointed and paid--to overcome difficulties for the people who appoint them and who expect them, among other things, to protect their lives.

The American Government must share the same responsibility: it is useless to attempt to fix it on the British Board of Trade for the reason that the boats were built in England and inspected there by British officials. They carried American citizens largely, and entered American ports. It would have been the simplest matter for the United States Government to veto the entry of any s.h.i.+p which did not conform to its laws of regulating speed in conditions of fog and icebergs--had they provided such laws. The fact is that the American nation has practically no mercantile marine, and in time of a disaster such as this it forgets, perhaps, that it has exactly the same right--and therefore the same responsibility--as the British Government to inspect, and to legislate: the right that is easily enforced by refusal to allow entry. The regulation of speed in dangerous regions could well be undertaken by some fleet of international police patrol vessels, with power to stop if necessary any boat found guilty of reckless racing. The additional duty of warning s.h.i.+ps of the exact locality of icebergs could be performed by these boats. It would not of course be possible or advisable to fix a "speed limit," because the region of icebergs varies in position as the icebergs float south, varies in point of danger as they melt and disappear, and the whole question has to be left largely to the judgment of the captain on the spot; but it would be possible to make it an offence against the law to go beyond a certain speed in known conditions of danger.

So much for the question of regulating speed on the high seas. The secondary question of safety appliances is governed by the same principle--that, in the last a.n.a.lysis, it is not the captain, not the pa.s.senger, not the builders and owners, but the governments through their experts, who are to be held responsible for the provision of lifesaving devices. Morally, of course, the owners and builders are responsible, but at present moral responsibility is too weak an incentive in human affairs--that is the miserable part of the whole wretched business--to induce owners generally to make every possible provision for the lives of those in their charge; to place human safety so far above every other consideration that no plan shall be left unconsidered, no device left untested, by which pa.s.sengers can escape from a sinking s.h.i.+p. But it is not correct to say, as has been said frequently, that it is greed and dividend-hunting that have characterized the policy of the steams.h.i.+p companies in their failure to provide safety appliances: these things in themselves are not expensive. They have vied with each other in making their lines attractive in point of speed, size and comfort, and they have been quite justified in doing so: such things are the product of ordinary compet.i.tion between commercial houses.

Where they have all failed morally is to extend to their pa.s.sengers the consideration that places their lives as of more interest to them than any other conceivable thing. They are not alone in this: thousands of other people have done the same thing and would do it to-day--in factories, in workshops, in mines, did not the government intervene and insist on safety precautions. The thing is a defect in human life of to-day--thoughtlessness for the well-being of our fellow-men; and we are all guilty of it in some degree. It is folly for the public to rise up now and condemn the steams.h.i.+p companies: their failing is the common failing of the immorality of indifference.

The remedy is the law, and it is the only remedy at present that will really accomplish anything. The British law on the subject dates from 1894, and requires only twenty boats for a s.h.i.+p the size of the t.i.tanic: the owners and builders have obeyed this law and fulfilled their legal responsibility. Increase this responsibility and they will fulfil it again--and the matter is ended so far as appliances are concerned. It should perhaps be mentioned that in a period of ten years only nine pa.s.sengers were lost on British s.h.i.+ps: the law seemed to be sufficient in fact.

The position of the American Government, however, is worse than that of the British Government. Its regulations require more than double the boat accommodation which the British regulations do, and yet it has allowed hundreds of thousands of its subjects to enter its ports on boats that defied its own laws. Had their government not been guilty of the same indifference, pa.s.sengers would not have been allowed aboard any British s.h.i.+p lacking in boat-accommodation--the simple expedient again of refusing entry. The reply of the British Government to the Senate Committee, accusing the Board of Trade of "insufficient requirements and lax inspection," might well be--"Ye have a law: see to it yourselves!"

It will be well now to consider briefly the various appliances that have been suggested to ensure the safety of pa.s.sengers and crew, and in doing so it may be remembered that the average man and woman has the same right as the expert to consider and discuss these things: they are not so technical as to prevent anyone of ordinary intelligence from understanding their construction. Using the term in its widest sense, we come first to:--

_Bulkheads and water-tight compartments_

It is impossible to attempt a discussion here of the exact constructional details of these parts of a s.h.i.+p; but in order to ill.u.s.trate briefly what is the purpose of having bulkheads, we may take the t.i.tanic as an example. She was divided into sixteen compartments by fifteen transverse steel walls called bulkheads.

[Footnote: See Figures 1 and 2 page 116.] If a hole is made in the side of the s.h.i.+p in any one compartment, steel water-tight doors seal off the only openings in that compartment and separate it as a damaged unit from the rest of the s.h.i.+p and the vessel is brought to land in safety. s.h.i.+ps have even put into the nearest port for inspection after collision, and finding only one compartment full of water and no other damage, have left again, for their home port without troubling to disembark pa.s.sengers and effect repairs.

The design of the t.i.tanic's bulkheads calls for some attention. The "Scientific American," in an excellent article on the comparative safety of the t.i.tanic's and other types of water-tight compartments, draws attention to the following weaknesses in the former--from the point of view of possible collision with an iceberg. She had no longitudinal bulkheads, which would subdivide her into smaller compartments and prevent the water filling the whole of a large compartment. Probably, too, the length of a large compartment was in any case too great--fifty-three feet.

The Mauretania, on the other hand, in addition to transverse bulkheads, is fitted with longitudinal torpedo bulkheads, and the s.p.a.ce between them and the side of the s.h.i.+p is utilised as a coal bunker. Then, too, in the Mauretania all bulkheads are carried up to the top deck, whereas in the case of the t.i.tanic they reached in some parts only to the saloon deck and in others to a lower deck still,--the weakness of this being that, when the water reached to the top of a bulkhead as the s.h.i.+p sank by the head, it flowed over and filled the next compartment. The British Admiralty, which subsidizes the Mauretania and Lusitania as fast cruisers in time of war, insisted on this type of construction, and it is considered vastly better than that used in the t.i.tanic. The writer of the article thinks it possible that these s.h.i.+ps might not have sunk as the result of a similar collision. But the ideal s.h.i.+p from the point of bulkhead construction, he considers to have been the Great Eastern, constructed many years ago by the famous engineer Brunel. So thorough was her system of compartments divided and subdivided by many transverse and longitudinal bulkheads that when she tore a hole eighty feet long in her side by striking a rock, she reached port in safety. Unfortunately the weight and cost of this method was so great that his plan was subsequently abandoned.

But it would not be just to say that the construction of the t.i.tanic was a serious mistake on the part of the White Star Line or her builders, on the ground that her bulkheads were not so well constructed as those of the Lusitania and Mauretania, which were built to fulfil British Admiralty regulations for time of war--an extraordinary risk which no builder of a pa.s.senger steamer--as such--would be expected to take into consideration when designing the vessel. It should be constantly borne in mind that the t.i.tanic met extraordinary conditions on the night of the collision: she was probably the safest s.h.i.+p afloat in all ordinary conditions. Collision with an iceberg is not an ordinary risk; but this disaster will probably result in altering the whole construction of bulkheads and compartments to the Great Eastern type, in order to include the one-in-a-million risk of iceberg collision and loss.

Here comes in the question of increased cost of construction, and in addition the great loss of cargo-carrying s.p.a.ce with decreased earning capacity, both of which will mean an increase in the pa.s.senger rates.

This the travelling public will have to face and undoubtedly will be willing to face for the satisfaction of knowing that what was so confidently affirmed by pa.s.sengers on the t.i.tanic's deck that night of the collision will then be really true,--that "we are on an unsinkable boat,"--so far as human forethought can devise. After all, this _must_ be the solution to the problem how best to ensure safety at sea. Other safety appliances are useful and necessary, but not useable in certain conditions of weather. The s.h.i.+p itself must always be the "safety appliance" that is really trustworthy, and nothing must be left undone to ensure this.

_Wireless apparatus and operators_

The range of the apparatus might well be extended, but the princ.i.p.al defect is the lack of an operator for night duty on some s.h.i.+ps. The awful fact that the Californian lay a few miles away, able to save every soul on board, and could not catch the message because the operator was asleep, seems too cruel to dwell upon. Even on the Carpathia, the operator was on the point of retiring when the message arrived, and we should have been much longer afloat--and some boats possibly swamped--had he not caught the message when he did. It has been suggested that officers should have a working knowledge of wireless telegraphy, and this is no doubt a wise provision. It would enable them to supervise the work of the operators more closely and from all the evidence, this seems a necessity. The exchange of vitally important messages between a sinking s.h.i.+p and those rus.h.i.+ng to her rescue should be under the control of an experienced officer. To take but one example--Bride testified that after giving the Birma the "C.Q.D." message and the position (incidentally Signer Marconi has stated that this has been abandoned in favour of "S.O.S.") and getting a reply, they got into touch with the Carpathia, and while talking with her were interrupted by the Birma asking what was the matter. No doubt it was the duty of the Birma to come at once without asking any questions, but the reply from the t.i.tanic, telling the Birma's operator not to be a "fool" by interrupting, seems to have been a needless waste of precious moments: to reply, "We are sinking" would have taken no longer, especially when in their own estimation of the strength of the signals they thought the Birma was the nearer s.h.i.+p. It is well to notice that some large liners have already a staff of three operators.

_Submarine signalling apparatus_

There are occasions when wireless apparatus is useless as a means of saving life at sea promptly.

One of its weaknesses is that when the s.h.i.+ps' engines are stopped, messages can no longer be sent out, that is, with the system at present adopted. It will be remembered that the t.i.tanic's messages got gradually fainter and then ceased altogether as she came to rest with her engines shut down.

Again, in fogs,--and most accidents occur in fogs,--while wireless informs of the accident, it does not enable one s.h.i.+p to locate another closely enough to take off her pa.s.sengers at once. There is as yet no method known by which wireless telegraphy will fix the direction of a message; and after a s.h.i.+p has been in fog for any considerable length of time it is more difficult to give the exact position to another vessel bringing help.

Nothing could ill.u.s.trate these two points better than the story of how the Baltic found the Republic in the year 1909, in a dense fog off Nantucket Lights.h.i.+p, when the latter was drifting helplessly after collision with the Florida. The Baltic received a wireless message stating the Republic's condition and the information that she was in touch with Nantucket through a submarine bell which she could hear ringing. The Baltic turned and went towards the position in the fog, picked up the submarine bell-signal from Nantucket, and then began searching near this position for the Republic. It took her twelve hours to find the damaged s.h.i.+p, zigzagging across a circle within which she thought the Republic might lie. In a rough sea it is doubtful whether the Republic would have remained afloat long enough for the Baltic to find her and take off all her pa.s.sengers.

Now on these two occasions when wireless telegraphy was found to be unreliable, the usefulness of the submarine bell at once becomes apparent. The Baltic could have gone unerringly to the Republic in the dense fog had the latter been fitted with a submarine emergency bell.

It will perhaps be well to spend a little time describing the submarine signalling apparatus to see how this result could have been obtained: twelve anxious hours in a dense fog on a s.h.i.+p which was injured so badly that she subsequently foundered, is an experience which every appliance known to human invention should be enlisted to prevent.

Submarine signalling has never received that public notice which wireless telegraphy has, for the reason that it does not appeal so readily to the popular mind. That it is an absolute necessity to every s.h.i.+p carrying pa.s.sengers--or carrying anything, for that matter--is beyond question. It is an additional safeguard that no s.h.i.+p can afford to be without.

There are many occasions when the atmosphere fails lamentably as a medium for carrying messages. When fog falls down, as it does sometimes in a moment, on the hundreds of s.h.i.+ps coasting down the traffic ways round our sh.o.r.es--ways which are defined so easily in clear weather and with such difficulty in fogs--the hundreds of lighthouses and lights.h.i.+ps which serve as warning beacons, and on which many millions of money have been spent, are for all practical purposes as useless to the navigator as if they had never been built: he is just as helpless as if he were back in the years before 1514, when Trinity House was granted a charter by Henry VIII "for the relief...of the s.h.i.+pping of this realm of England," and began a system of lights on the sh.o.r.es, of which the present chain of lighthouses and lights.h.i.+ps is the outcome.

Nor is the foghorn much better: the presence of different layers of fog and air, and their varying densities, which cause both reflection and refraction of sound, prevent the air from being a reliable medium for carrying it. Now, submarine signalling has none of these defects, for the medium is water, subject to no such variable conditions as the air. Its density is practically non variable, and sound travels through it at the rate of 4400 feet per second, without deviation or reflection.

The apparatus consists of a bell designed to ring either pneumatically from a lights.h.i.+p, electrically from the sh.o.r.e (the bell itself being a tripod at the bottom of the sea), automatically from a floating bell-buoy, or by hand from a s.h.i.+p or boat. The sound travels from the bell in every direction, like waves in a pond, and falls, it may be, on the side of a s.h.i.+p. The receiving apparatus is fixed inside the skin of the s.h.i.+p and consists of a small iron tank, 16 inches square and 18 inches deep. The front of the tank facing the s.h.i.+p's iron skin is missing and the tank, being filled with water, is bolted to the framework and sealed firmly to the s.h.i.+p's side by rubber facing. In this way a portion of the s.h.i.+p's iron hull is washed by the sea on one side and water in the tank on the other. Vibrations from a bell ringing at a distance fall on the iron side, travel through, and strike on two microphones hanging in the tank. These microphones transmit the sound along wires to the chart room, where telephones convey the message to the officer on duty.

There are two of these tanks or "receivers" fitted against the s.h.i.+p's side, one on the port and one on the starboard side, near the bows, and as far down below the water level as is possible. The direction of sounds coming to the microphones hanging in these tanks can be estimated by switching alternately to the port and starboard tanks. If the sound is of greater intensity on the port side, then the bell signalling is off the port bows; and similarly on the starboard side.

The s.h.i.+p is turned towards the sound until the same volume of sound is heard from both receivers, when the bell is known to be dead ahead. So accurate is this in practice that a trained operator can steer his s.h.i.+p in the densest fog directly to a lights.h.i.+p or any other point where a submarine bell is sending its warning beneath the sea. It must be repeated that the medium in which these signals are transmitted is a constant one, not subject to any of the limitations and variations imposed on the atmosphere and the ether as media for the transmission of light, blasts of a foghorn, and wireless vibrations. At present the chief use of submarine signalling is from the sh.o.r.e or a lights.h.i.+p to s.h.i.+ps at sea, and not from s.h.i.+p to s.h.i.+p or from s.h.i.+p to the sh.o.r.e: in other words s.h.i.+ps carry only receiving apparatus, and lighthouses and lights.h.i.+ps use only signalling apparatus. Some of the lighthouses and lights.h.i.+ps on our coasts already have these submarine bells in addition to their lights, and in bad weather the bells send out their messages to warn s.h.i.+ps of their proximity to a danger point. This invention enables s.h.i.+ps to pick up the sound of bell after bell on a coast and run along it in the densest fog almost as well as in daylight; pa.s.senger steamers coming into port do not have to wander about in the fog, groping their way blindly into harbour. By having a code of rings, and judging by the intensity of the sound, it is possible to tell almost exactly where a s.h.i.+p is in relation to the coast or to some lights.h.i.+p. The British Admiralty report in 1906 said: "If the lights.h.i.+ps round the coast were fitted with submarine bells, it would be possible for s.h.i.+ps fitted with receiving apparatus to navigate in fog with almost as great certainty as in clear weather."

And the following remark of a captain engaged in coast service is instructive. He had been asked to cut down expenses by omitting the submarine signalling apparatus, but replied: "I would rather take out the wireless. That only enables me to tell other people where I am.

The submarine signal enables me to find out where I am myself."

The range of the apparatus is not so wide as that of wireless telegraphy, varying from 10 to 15 miles for a large s.h.i.+p (although instances of 20 to 30 are on record), and from 3 to 8 miles for a small s.h.i.+p.

At present the receiving apparatus is fixed on only some 650 steamers of the merchant marine, these being mostly the first-cla.s.s pa.s.senger liners. There is no question that it should be installed, along with wireless apparatus, on every s.h.i.+p of over 1000 tons gross tonnage.

Equally important is the provision of signalling apparatus on board s.h.i.+ps: it is obviously just as necessary to transmit a signal as to receive one; but at present the sending of signals from s.h.i.+ps has not been perfected. The invention of signal-transmitting apparatus to be used while the s.h.i.+p is under way is as yet in the experimental stage; but while she is at rest a bell similar to those used by lighthouses can be sunk over her side and rung by hand with exactly the same effect. But liners are not provided with them (they cost only 60 Pounds!).

As mentioned before, with another 60 Pounds spent on the Republic's equipment, the Baltic could have picked up her bell and steered direct to her--just as they both heard the bell of Nantucket Lights.h.i.+p.

Again, if the t.i.tanic had been provided with a bell and the Californian with receiving apparatus,--neither of them was,--the officer on the bridge could have heard the signals from the telephones near.

A smaller size for use in lifeboats is provided, and would be heard by receiving apparatus for approximately five miles. If we had hung one of these bells over the side of the lifeboats afloat that night we should have been free from the anxiety of being run down as we lay across the Carpathia's path, without a light. Or if we had gone adrift in a dense fog and wandered miles apart from each other on the sea (as we inevitably should have done), the Carpathia could still have picked up each boat individually by means of the bell signal.

In those s.h.i.+ps fitted with receiving apparatus, at least one officer is obliged to understand the working of the apparatus: a very wise precaution, and, as suggested above, one that should be taken with respect to wireless apparatus also.

It was a very great pleasure to me to see all this apparatus in manufacture and in use at one of the princ.i.p.al submarine signalling works in America and to hear some of the remarkable stories of its value in actual practice. I was struck by the aptness of the motto adopted by them--"De profundis clamavi"--in relation to the t.i.tanic's end and the calls of our pa.s.sengers from the sea when she sank. "Out of the deep have I called unto Thee" is indeed a suitable motto for those who are doing all they can to prevent such calls arising from their fellow men and women "out of the deep."

_Fixing of steams.h.i.+p routes_

The "lanes" along which the liners travel are fixed by agreement among the steams.h.i.+p companies in consultation with the Hydrographic departments of the different countries. These routes are arranged so that east-bound steamers are always a number of miles away from those going west, and thus the danger of collision between east and west-bound vessels is entirely eliminated. The "lanes" can be moved farther south if icebergs threaten, and north again when the danger is removed. Of course the farther south they are placed, the longer the journey to be made, and the longer the time spent on board, with consequent grumbling by some pa.s.sengers. For example, the lanes since the disaster to the t.i.tanic have been moved one hundred miles farther south, which means one hundred and eighty miles longer journey, taking eight hours.

The only real precaution against colliding with icebergs is to go south of the place where they are likely to be: there is no other way.

_Lifeboats_

The provision was of course woefully inadequate. The only humane plan is to have a numbered seat in a boat a.s.signed to each pa.s.senger and member of the crew. It would seem well to have this number pointed out at the time of booking a berth, and to have a plan in each cabin showing where the boat is and how to get to it the most direct way--a most important consideration with a s.h.i.+p like the t.i.tanic with over two miles of deck s.p.a.ce. Boat-drills of the pa.s.sengers and crew of each boat should be held, under compulsion, as soon as possible after leaving port. I asked an officer as to the possibility of having such a drill immediately after the gangways are withdrawn and before the tugs are allowed to haul the s.h.i.+p out of dock, but he says the difficulties are almost insuperable at such a time. If so, the drill should be conducted in sections as soon as possible after sailing, and should be conducted in a thorough manner. Children in school are called upon suddenly to go through fire-drill, and there is no reason why pa.s.sengers on board s.h.i.+p should not be similarly trained. So much depends on order and readiness in time of danger. Undoubtedly, the whole subject of manning, provisioning, loading and lowering of lifeboats should be in the hands of an expert officer, who should have no other duties. The modern liner has become far too big to permit the captain to exercise control over the whole s.h.i.+p, and all vitally important subdivisions should be controlled by a separate authority.

It seems a piece of bitter irony to remember that on the t.i.tanic a special chef was engaged at a large salary,--larger perhaps than that of any officer,--and no boatmaster (or some such officer) was considered necessary. The general system again--not criminal neglect, as some hasty criticisms would say, but lack of consideration for our fellow-man, the placing of luxurious attractions above that kindly forethought that allows no precaution to be neglected for even the humblest pa.s.senger. But it must not be overlooked that the provision of sufficient lifeboats on deck is not evidence they will all be launched easily or all the pa.s.sengers taken off safely. It must be remembered that ideal conditions prevailed that night for launching boats from the decks of the t.i.tanic: there was no list that prevented the boats getting away, they could be launched on both sides, and when they were lowered the sea was so calm that they pulled away without any of the smas.h.i.+ng against the side that is possible in rough seas.

Sometimes it would mean that only those boats on the side sheltered from a heavy sea could ever get away, and this would at once halve the boat accommodation. And when launched, there would be the danger of swamping in such a heavy sea. All things considered, lifeboats might be the poorest sort of safeguard in certain conditions.

Life-rafts are said to be much inferior to lifeboats in a rough sea, and collapsible boats made of canvas and thin wood soon decay under exposure to weather and are danger-traps at a critical moment.

Some of the lifeboats should be provided with motors, to keep the boats together and to tow if necessary. The launching is an important matter: the t.i.tanic's davits worked excellently and no doubt were largely responsible for all the boats getting away safely: they were far superior to those on most liners.

_Pontoons_

After the sinking of the Bourgogne, when two Americans lost their lives, a prize of 4000 Pounds was offered by their heirs for the best life-saving device applicable to s.h.i.+ps at sea. A board sat to consider the various appliances sent in by compet.i.tors, and finally awarded the prize to an Englishman, whose design provided for a flat structure the width of the s.h.i.+p, which could be floated off when required and would accommodate several hundred pa.s.sengers. It has never been adopted by any steams.h.i.+p line. Other similar designs are known, by which the whole of the after deck can be pushed over from the stern by a ratchet arrangement, with air-tanks below to buoy it up: it seems to be a practical suggestion.

One point where the t.i.tanic management failed lamentably was to provide a properly trained crew to each lifeboat. The rowing was in most cases execrable. There is no more reason why a steward should be able to row than a pa.s.senger--less so than some of the pa.s.sengers who were lost; men of leisure accustomed to all kinds of sport (including rowing), and in addition probably more fit physically than a steward to row for hours on the open sea. And if a steward cannot row, he has no right to be at an oar; so that, under the unwritten rule that pa.s.sengers take precedence of the crew when there is not sufficient accommodation for all (a situation that should never be allowed to arise again, for a member of the crew should have an equal opportunity with a pa.s.senger to save his life), the majority of stewards and cooks should have stayed behind and pa.s.sengers have come instead: they could not have been of less use, and they might have been of more. It will be remembered that the proportion of crew saved to pa.s.sengers was 210 to 495, a high proportion.

Another point arises out of these figures--deduct 21 members of the crew who were stewardesses, and 189 men of the crew are left as against the 495 pa.s.sengers. Of these some got on the overturned collapsible boat after the t.i.tanic sank, and a few were picked up by the lifeboats, but these were not many in all. Now with the 17 boats brought to the Carpathia and an average of six of the crew to man each boat,--probably a higher average than was realized,--we get a total of 102 who should have been saved as against 189 who actually were. There were, as is known, stokers and stewards in the boats who were not members of the lifeboats' crews. It may seem heartless to a.n.a.lyze figures in this way, and suggest that some of the crew who got to the Carpathia never should have done so; but, after all, pa.s.sengers took their pa.s.sage under certain rules,--written and unwritten,--and one is that in times of danger the servants of the company in whose boats they sail shall first of all see to the safety of the pa.s.sengers before thinking of their own. There were only 126 men pa.s.sengers saved as against 189 of the crew, and 661 men lost as against 686 of the crew, so that actually the crew had a greater percentage saved than the men pa.s.sengers--22 per cent against 16.

But steams.h.i.+p companies are faced with real difficulties in this matter. The crews are never the same for two voyages together: they sign on for the one trip, then perhaps take a berth on sh.o.r.e as waiters, stokers in hotel furnace-rooms, etc.,--to resume life on board any other s.h.i.+p that is handy when the desire comes to go to sea again. They can in no sense be regarded as part of a h.o.m.ogeneous crew, subject to regular discipline and educated to appreciate the morale of a particular liner, as a man of war's crew is.

_Searchlights_