SAFETY AT SEA

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 25, 30 January 1929, Page 18

SAFETY AT SEA

BRITAIN'S GREAT RECORD

AN AMEKICAN'S TESTIMONY

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SAN FEANCISCO, 12th Dec.

In view of tho recent tragedy of tho steamer Vestris, and . the discussions which have resulted, a paper read before the National Safety Council by Captain C. A. M'Allister, president of the American Bureau of Shipping, is of especial interest, dealing as it does with tho subject of the magnificent work tho British have accomplished in protecting lives at sea. Captain M'Allister is a national authority on ships, shipping, and matters pertaining to tho sea, and his paper, on " Safety at Sea," is based largely on British performances.

"You will note," lie writes in Uie "San Francisco Shipping Register," "that I have dealt at length on British load lines, for the fact is that they have taken the initiative in all matters pertaining to the safety of ships at sea, in this respect , "At the International Shipping Conference, held in London in June, it was stated that in the last 25 years British shipping has averaged 4,000,000,000 passenger miles per annum and 200 passengers have been drowned per annum, or one passenger to every 20,000,----000 miles," ho continued. "Although it has been said that.one can make any kind of a case from statistics, this is surely a remarkable record and shows wonderful progress from that of the seven years 1846----1853, when no fewer than 61 British emigrant ships were lost at sea, a state of affairs which resulted hi the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, the beginning of active government control in British shipping, so far at least, as the laying down oil safety regulations was concerned. "There is no doubt that travel on. the- high seas is becoming iitcroasingly safer, and this is duo in a largo measure to tho. growth in size- of ships, the change from wood to steel as a material of construction, combined with theapplication of scientific methods to structural design, the change iroin sail to'mechanical propulsion, ■■ to superior navigating equipment and aids to navigation, to government safety regulations, the licensing of officers and oneinecra, and.last, but not least, to the beneficent influence of the various classification societies' rules and regulations."