§ MR. G. W. WOLFF (Belfast, E.)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, 78 whether, considering that the wreck of the Drummond Castle took place close to the electric lighthouses of Ushant, and that the great electric light failed to penetrate fog, and that the wreck of the Eider took place close to the St. Catherine's Lighthouse, containing the most powerful electric light in this country, and that, at that time, the late Dr. Tyndall, Mr. John R. Wigham, and eminent shipowners and shipmasters, pointed out the uselessness of the electric light in foggy and hazy weather, the Board of Trade will withhold their sanction to any further installations of the electric light for lighthouse purposes until such an Inquiry shall have been made?
§ MR. RITCHIEAn Inquiry has been ordered into the loss of the Drummond Castle, and until it is held I am not in a position to form any opinion as to the causes contributory to that lamentable occurrence; but I may state, for the information of the hon. Member, that no electric light for lighthouses has been sanctioned for the last ten years.