§ SIR JOHN LENG (Dundee)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether it is in the contemplation of the Board to encourage the adaptation of the new international code of signals, by means of lamps, for service during the night, corresponding to that by flags during the day, so that in cases of accident or breakdown of machinery in steamers they could be signalled to passing steamers as well by day as by night; and, seeing that Captain Fail-weather, of the s.s. "Vortigern," has submitted to the Board a system of nocturnal code signalling enabling vessels to communicate with each other, or to lighthouse and shore stations, and requiring only one lamp in addition to those now used, so that the initial expense would only amount to a few shillings, whether the Board has considered, or will consider, the expediency of this system of night signalling at sea being generally adopted in the merchant service.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURA system of signalling at night by means of flashes of light or blasts of sound according to the Morse Code is already included in the revised edition of the International Code of Signals. That system was adopted by the Committee which revised the International Code, on the recommendation of the Washington Maritime Conference held in 1889, it being the opinion of that Conference that night signalling at sea can better be carried out by a system of long and short flashes from a white light than by any system—such as that of Captain Fair-weather—in which coloured lights are used. Having regard to that opinion, and to all the circumstances, the Board of Trade are not prepared to take steps for the adoption by the Mercantile Marine of any system of signalling at night by means of coloured lights.