allowed. Few have equipment sufficient to carry half of the passengers and crew.

The Titanic carried on her davits sixteen lifeboats with a capacity of 990 persons, and had four collapsible boats providing accommodation for 188 more, making a total of 1,178. In the emergency the collapsible boats proved very unreliable and difficult to get into the water, and at least one of this type of small craft was swamped in the effort to escape. All the Titanic's boats were new and had been tested and passed upon as adequate under the law by the inspectors of the British Board of Trade. In the event they proved adequate to rescue less than a third of the ship's company.

Alexander Carlisle, who designed both the Olympic and the Titanic, admitted in a recent interview that the great loss of life on the Titanic was due to the fact that she did not have enough lifeboats. He declared that the Titanic should have carried fifty boats instead of the sixteen lifeboats and the four collapsibles.

On the diagram on the next two pages is shown where those fifty lifeboats could have been carried on the Titanic. Lewis Nixon, one of the foremost of American ship-building experts, is the authority on which the statement is made that there could be no practical or mechanical difficulty to prevent these boats being carried on davits as indicated in the diagram.

Why, then, were the 1,600 of the Titanic's dead needlessly sacrificed? That is a ques

tion which the officers of the White Star Line must answer, and explanations will have to be made, with legislative investigations already under way on two sides of the ocean.

It is a poor excuse that others are equally blameworthy, but, in fairness to the White Star Line, it must be said its competitors are quite as negligent in the protection of their passengers' lives. The table on this page, compiled from statistics on file at the office of

the Inspector of Steam Vessels at New York, gives an idea of the amount of lifeboat protection afforded by typical steamships of some of the leading transatlantic lines.

That this is a condition of affairs imperatively calling for immediate governmental action, a mere glance at the figures will plainly indicate. Even the officers of the transatlantic lines admit that the recent enormous increase in the size and passenger capacity of steamships has created a need for thorough revision of the laws regulating steamship lifeboat equipment. For a few days after the Titanic disaster there was an effort in some quarters to lead the public to believe that more efficient protection was not practicable. No responsible officer of a transatlantic line is likely to take that position to-day, and it would not be surprising to find, in the future, a brief statement of lifeboat equipment added to the glowing eulogies of glass-inclosed swimming-pools, sun parlors, and electric elevators.

While public interest is still aroused it may be well for those who criticise the condition which has caught them unaware to give some brief study to the present governmental regulations in regard to lifeboat equipment, regulations which have been proved so woefully inadequate in the test. The plain truth of the matter is that what was everybody's business, as usual, proved nobody's. The regulations of nearly every nation are completely out of date, failing to keep up with the recent wonderful advance in the shipbuilder's art.

In the first place, it may be said that the United States regulations apply practically only to transatlantic liners flying the American flag-a very small proportion of the fleet which plies the North Atlantic steamship lanes. With every important maritime nation the United States has reciprocal agreements by which steamships are subject only to the regulations of their home countries.

Number of Persons

These

Number of Persons Unprovided

For.

0

1,178

2,269

373 16

946

337

18

652 20

591

22

596

20

Lusitania
La Provence
Caledonia
St. Louis

Cunard

276

Inadequate as are our own regulations, the British legal requirements are even more absurdly insufficient. The British regulations were apparently last revised in 1898, when 45,000 and 50,000 ton ships were creatures of the imagination, and no one dreamed that they would be so soon actual facts. In a table setting forth the lifeboats to be carried by ships of various tonnages the figures end with a provision for vessels of "10,000 tons and upward." Ships of this or greater tonnage are required to carry sixteen lifeboats under davits, with an aggregate cubic capacity of 5,500 feet. If these boats do not furnish sufficient accommodations for all persons on board, collapsible boats or rafts, etc., are to be added. This type of craft was proved to be of little value in such an emergency as that which confronted those on the Titanic. As a matter of fact, under a strict interpretation of the British law the Titanic need not have carried as many boats as she did. With her fifteen water-tight bulkheads, the liner's owners could have reduced the lifeboat equipment by claiming exemption under the following clause:

"When ships of any class are divided into efficient water-tight compartments, to the satisfaction of the Board of Trade, they shall only be required to carry additional boats, rafts, and buoyant apparatus of one-half of the capacity required by these rules. . . .

From this brief synopsis of the regulations of Great Britain and the United States it will be seen that there is an immediate need of thorough revision of these laws. It may be said that the rules of most other maritime nations are little better than an average between those of the two English-speaking countries. It has been proposed to lay the whole matter before the Hague Tribunal; and, while there seems to be some doubt as to the exact procedure which would have to be followed, the plan appears feasible and gives a promise of excellent results.

The whole question of transatlantic steamship regulation is international enough in scope to make it a fit subject for the Hague Tribunal's consideration. Another question which might be appropriately considered at the same time and place is the curbing of competitive racing for records on the dangerous northern routes during the season for icebergs.

Certain it is that public opinion on both sides of the Atlantic demands that something be done to make impossible a repetition of

the recent disaster. Despite the cruel needlessness of the sacrifice, the Titanic's dead will not have given their lives altogether in vain if that is accomplished. Lifeboats in sufficient number to carry every passenger and sailor on every transatlantic liner we must and doubtless will have as soon as it is practicable to make the mechanical changes. But a lifeboat is a poor refuge in a stormy sea, and a clumsy thing to get into the water from a towering liner's sides in stress of peril and panic.

In an effort to obtain an authoritative opinion upon the subject, Lewis Nixon was asked to express his view on the lessons to be learned from the Titanic disaster.

"There is absolutely no doubt," Mr. Nixon said, "that every transatlantic liner should carry lifeboats under davits sufficient in number to carry all of her passengers and crew in the event of such an accident as befell the Titanic."

Mr. Nixon was not impressed by the statements credited to officers of certain steamship companies that enough lifeboats could not be efficiently carried to take away all the ship's company. He took up a pencil and rapidly indicated on a photograph of the Titanic just where sufficient lifeboats could have been placed in that particular instance.

"It is merely a matter of mechanical ingenuity," he said. "It is true that the hardest thing we have to figure out when we design a ship is where to stow our boats; but if it should be necessary to carry enough lifeboats to take away twice the passenger capacity of the Titanic, it would not be mechanically impossible for a vessel of her size to carry that many lifeboats in a position where they could. be safely put into the water.

"You must not believe, however, that because a steamship carries lifeboats enough to take away all her passengers, there can be no disasters as bad as that which befell the Titanic. The chances against such an accident as the Titanic's are ten thousand to one, but the public has a right to demand the protection against that ten thousandth chance.

"No, there would be no difficulty about putting the boats there," he repeated, running his pencil over the photograph. "There is certainly room for six more on each side of the ship between the boats shown here on the boat deck."

He added that it would be more difficult

mechanically, but quite possible to have another row all the way along the deck below the boat deck, and he indicated other positions where boats might be stowed.

"But that is not the real question," he said, tossing the pencil aside and sinking back in his chair. "The real lesson to be learned from the Titanic is that the present northerly routes followed by the transatlantic steamships are not safe. It is all very well to blame the steamship companies in their efforts for speed and records, but it is by no means all

their fault, and I think that after this terrible affair the public will have a little more patience. I see that some of the steamship companies have already agreed to have their vessels follow more southerly routes. That is the usual thing when a finer hits an iceberg; and then after a few months they are back again up north racing for records. No, the steamship companies are not all to blame. know how it is when a ship is delayed. You have missed the train you expected to take, you are late for an engagement, and the

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