LIFE-SAVING EQUIPMENT AT SEA.
[To sin EDITOR or MR " SPROTITOR." J Stu,—In your admirable article of last week upon the loss of the Titanic; ' attention was naturally called to the lesson taught by the calamity of providing sufficient life-saving ap- pliances in future for all who may be aboard such vessels. Their best form, or forms, is, however, a matter for careful consideration, owing to the wide diversity of opinion amongst experienced mariners and shipbuilders as to their values under the wide range of sea accident and disaster.
The inquiry by the Board of Trade is the best possible method for getting together the necessary information to enable the most effective all-round life-saving means to be determined upon. Pending this, collapsible boats would seem to afford the readiest means of temporarily making up full boat accommodation where now lacking.
It is hardly fair to throw too much blame for what has happened upon the Board of Trade, for its officials have only shared, humanly, in the common British excess of confidence in the constructional perfection of the modern liner. The experience of the writer in the course of many dealings with the Department has emphatically been that the greatest readiness has always been shown in giving the beet assistance in any difficulties submitted to it, and that this has always proved of the highest value. It goes without saying that its officials will do their utmost in the coming inquiry, and that those with invaluable knowledge, gained at first hand by practical experience, will also be only too ready to place it at the disposal, and for the benefit, of all open to the perils of the farer on the unstable sea.—I am, Sir, &c., Harbour Superintendent, Llanelly. JOHN REIM
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