§ THE EARL OF STRAFFORDasked, whether the Board of Trade had given a trial to the method of lowering boats by flexible steel wire on board steam and sailing ships, as advocated by Mr. 609 W. Bell, naval architect, of Greenock, N.B., by which system it was said:—
That the heaviest lifeboat could be released and lowered by a couple of men in less than sixty seconds.
§ LORD PLAYFAIRsaid, the Board of Trade had the power, under the Shipping Act, 1894, to take care that ships had good and efficient lowering gear for the boats, but the Act did not enjoin that any particular method of lowering should be followed. A Committee of experts inquired into the whole matter, and gave their own ideas of efficiency, but all the Board of Trade had, through its surveyors, to do was to see that when a ship passed examination the method of lowering boats was efficient. They could not enter upon an inquiry as to any particular method or invention. If the invention to which the noble Lord alluded were applied to one particular ship, and that ship applied to the Board of Trade to be passed as a ship well equipped for navigable purposes, the Board would send a surveyor to see the working of the method. Under the circumstances, the Board could not hold an inquiry as to the merits of the particular invention in question.