B red burgee (flag with swallow-tailed fly) C pendant white with red ball D " blue with white ball F " red " " " G " divided vertically yellow and blue H flag divided vertically white and red J " " horizontally blue, white, blue K " " vertically yellow and blue L " " quarterly blue and yellow M " blue with white saltire N " chequered blue and white P " blue pierced with white square (the blue Peter) Q " yellow R " red with yellow cross S " white pierced with blue square T " divided vertically red, white, blue V " white with red saltire W " blue bordered white pierced with red square, and an "Answering Signal" or Code Pendant divided vertically red and white in five stripes. In 1857 this "Commercial Code of Signals for use of all Nations" was issued by the Board of Trade, and it sufficed for the needs of the next thirty years, the name being changed to International Code about 1880. At the end of that period the Board of Trade appointed a Committee to bring it up to date and to consider whether a system of night signals should be added to it. In 1899 this Committee submitted a revision of the Code "which differed from that then current only in the omission of certain signals which had become obsolete and the substitution of certain other signals for which modern developments had created a demand." The criticisms of the foreign maritime powers upon this book led, however, to a complete revision and recasting of the old code for reasons which the Committee summarise in their final report[394] in 1896 in the following words: Since the old Code of signals was first issued there has been a very considerable increase in the average speed of vessels belonging to the Mercantile Marine, owing both to the larger percentage of steamers as compared with sailing vessels and to the greater speed to which steamers now attain. Vessels consequently remain within signalling distance of one another and of signal stations for a much shorter time than was the case 40 years ago, and it is necessary that an efficient Code of signals should provide the means of rapid communication. In a Code, such as the International Code, in which signals are made chiefly by means of flags, rapidity of communication can best be secured by reducing to a minimum the number of flags required to make the signals, since every additional flag in a hoist involves delay in bending on the flags on the part of the person making the signals and delay in making out the flags on the part of the person taking in the signals, and to enable this to be done without the number of signals in the Code being reduced, it was necessary to provide an increased number of two or three flag signals by adding additional flags to the Code.