A nation unprepared Lib :cry • ?f As the 'Torrey
Canyon' saga draws to a close, the inquest begins. The questions clamour for an answer. First, how was it that the 60,000-ton supertanker, carrying 100,000 tons of oil, and equipped with every • modern navigational device, managed to steer straight for one of the best-known hazards °if the coasts of Britain? What additional forms of navigational aid are possible? Might it not even be feasible, with the help the most powerful modern explosives, to ow up for good some of the well-known if sser hazards that have been threatening ipping for centuries?
All these questions must be asked—and swered. But whatever is learned from em, and whatever can be done in the way prevention on future occasions, it must accepted that accidents are hound to cur; and with the development of modern hnology (not only in the field of oil trans- - rtation) they are bound to occur on a successively larger, and each time unpre- cedented, scale. Even more important, ttere- fore, are the questions that arise once the initial disaster has happened. One issue that stands urgently in need of clarification and reform is the legal question. Ideally, this needs to be clarified in a way that would either give redress against the owners of the ship to those who could prove to have been dam- aged by the accident, wherever it occurred, Provided that negligence was established; or else give governments the right to intervene in clearly defined circumstances and on ex- plicit terms to mitigate the damage. is the question of the Government's be- haviour when disaster of this kind strikes. One thing is clear: the present Government's handling of the 'Torrey Canyon' affair has provided a classic example of how not to do it. Unpreparedness before catastrophe struck, indecision once it had happened, the episode has epitomised in uniquely vivid form the essential character of the Wilson administra- tion. Indeed, as soon as the press reported, forty-eight hours after the tanker had gone aground, that Mr Wilson had personally taken command of the battle to save Britain's beaches, it was likely that this was going to be yet another of the Prime Minister's glorious failures Clio one could have done more . . .'). Likelihood turned to certainty when Mr Wilson smartly got out from under and passed the buck to the unfortunate Mr Jenkins.
And all the while nothing was happening except dither and an endless flow of press conferences. The attempt to use detergents was futile from the start, since there was never sufficient detergent in Britain to deal with so large a volume of oil. Which was per- haps just as well, since the main effect of the detergent has been to do far more damage to marine life than oil pollution alone could ever have achieved. Even more fatuous was the suggestion to surround the vessel (and its oil) with a polyurethane cordon which could never have been either deep enough or strong enough to cope with a problem of this size.
Almost from the start, disinterested expert opinion has been unanimous that the only course to take was to set fire to the ship and its noxious cargo. Yet for ten days the Government was terrified to act, until, after the bulk of the oil had 'already escaped, it belatedly bombed the ship. Its excuse that it procrastinated because there was still a hope of refloating the ship, and avoiding pollution that way, does not stand up to examination. In the first place, after half that time it was clear that the chance of re- flotation, although still there, had dwindled to the point where it could no longer be a governing consideration. And, secondly, the daily reports from Mr Foley made it abun- dantly clear that what was leaving the Gov- ernment impotent was its fear that if it took any such drastic action it might beheld liable for the full insured value of the ship and its cargo—some £6 To which the short answer is 'So what?' What is £6 million to a government that spends £20 million a day'? Especially since it has, during the ten days of dither, spent £1 million on near-useless detergent and allowed the nation to suffer many times that amount of damage, over a period of years rather than months, in pollution to water and shore. Moreover, the £6 million figure is itself phoney, since the maximum value' of the 'Torrey Canyon' once she had gone aground on the reef could not possibly have been more than half that amount.
It is, perhaps, just understandable that the Government of a major maritime nation may have telt (although wrongly) reluctant to set the precedent 6f 'illegally' bombing the ship of another country in these cir- cumstances. But even this may not have been necessary. Incredibly,, the Government is now trying to make a virtue out of the fact that at no time did it approach, consult or attempt to do a deal with the insurers and owners of the vessel. Yet this is the first thing it should have attempted, offering, say, £1 million to the insurers for indemnification against legal action resulting from bombing the 'Torrey Canyon.' For the nation it would have been cheap at the price; and to help drive the bargain the Government should at that time have made clear that, if the offer was not accepted within twenty-four hours, it would order the bombers in anyway.
In one way, the 'Torrey Canyon' affair has been fortunate. The damage done has been of a particularly unpleasant kind, but the unpreparedness of the Government and the nation to meet the predictable disasters of a technological age has been exposed at the cost of only a single human life. Next time —particularly if nuclear installations are in- volved—we may not be so lucky. The case for a committee of inquiry into the 'Torrey Canyon' disaster and the ten wasted days that followed it, so that the lessons may be learned and so that next time the nation is prepared, is overwhelming.
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