5. That the additional boats and rafts required under the provisions of Division A, class 1(d) of the Life-Saving Appliances Rules shall be of at least such carrying capacity that they, and the boats required by columns 2 and 3 of the above table, provide together three-fourths more than the minimum cubic contents required by column 4 of that table. 6. That vessels divided into efficient water-tight compartments to the satisfaction of the board of trade should (provided they are fitted with wireless telegraphy apparatus) be exempt from the requirement of additional boats and (or) rafts. The committee suggest, in this connection, that the board of trade should review the requirements designed to attain the standards as to water-tight compartments at present enforced by them under rule 12, having regard to the developments of shipbuilding since the report of the committee on the spacing and construction of water-tight bulkheads. We have also had before us the board's further letter of May 17 inquiring whether, in the opinion of the advisory committee, it would be advisable to prescribe a maximum depth for lifeboats as compared with their breadth, and, if so, what that proportion should be. In connection with this letter we have been supplied by the board of trade with reports from their principal officers in Great Britain, giving the dimensions and cubic capacities of the various kinds of boats on five typical ships in each of eight ports. We recommend that the board should be advised to alter the Life-Saving Appliances Rules so as to provide that, in future, the depth of lifeboats supplied to a British merchant vessel shall not exceed 44 per cent. of their breadth. NORMAN HILL. S. CROSS. GEO. N. HAMPSON. T. ROYDEN. THOMAS SPENCER. A. M. CARLISLE. WM. THEODORE DOXFORD. ROBERT A. OGILVIE. T. ROME. J. HAVELOCK WILSON. * * * * * It will be observed that if effect had been given by the board of trade to the report of the advisory committee the requirements for a vessel of the size of the _Titanic_ would have reached 14,525 cubic feet (8,300 plus three-fourths of 8,300, namely, 6,225), with, however, this qualification that if the vessel were divided into efficient water-tight compartments (as she probably was) and fitted with wireless telegraphy (as she certainly was) a provision of a boat capacity of 8,300 cubic feet, equivalent to space for 830 persons, would have been legally sufficient. This would have been much less than the accommodation with which the _Titanic_ when she put to sea was, in fact, provided (namely, for 1,178 persons).