SAFETY AT SEA.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1510, 5 August 1912, Page 5

SAFETY AT SEA.

BRITISH INQUIRY. v ■ ' BOARD OF TRADE MOVES AT LAST. PROVISION OF BOATS. ' By TelcErapt—Pres3 Aesociation-CopyriEhf (Kcc. Auguft i, 5.5 p.m.) London; August 3. Professor Biles, vice-president of tha Institution of Naval Architects, lias been appointed as Chairman of a Committeo to advise the Board of Trade as to the most efficient arrangements for- stowing lifeboats on' board ships for launching them in an emergency,, The committee is to consider to what extent mechanical propulsion should supplement or supersede oars and sails, and to what extent rafts of an approved character should bo utilised. It is'also requested to make any other recommendations concerning the safety, of life at sea.\ ANOTHER INQUIRY. The Board of Trade, writes Commander Carlyon Bellairs in ths "Contemporary Review," has ever lagged behind the times and shown itself lacking in masterful initiative, ami it is time it ceased to control transport orrangements. If its salvation depended on the number of inquiries it has conducted, one could fill this "Review" by their mere numeration. A man of initiative would, however, realise that the essence of inquiry- is impartiality. The Hoard of Trade has vitiated all these inquiries partly by too numerous n committee and chiefly by its failure to recognise that transport is nothing if it .is not a servant, so that the proper place of the interests affected is not on tho judgment seat as members of a committee, but in the witness-box as interested experts. Eveit on committees to inquire into shipping rings, the directors of the rings wero committee men! What is needed is a Board of Transport of three or four experts to watch and control , transport questions on the largo scale, even as the i Road ' Board established by Mr. LloydGeorge docs on the small "scale with the roads of tho United Kingdom. Tho Road Board docs its work with a single-minded idea of benefit to tho country, and it has no taint of bureaucracy in its composition. In the' United States, and Canada commissioners with large powers over railways have been at work for years to the great gain of those two countries.