The board are glad to note that subcommittees have been appointed to deal concurrently with the subjects requiring detailed consideration in connection with the revision of the life-saving appliances rules. The board desire me to add that they assume that the committee, in considering the matters referred to them, will have regard to all important aspects of the question of life-saving appliances, whether expressly dealt with in the statutory rules or not, and in particular to the essential question of the adequacy of the provision for lowering and manning the boats and rafts carried by vessels. I am, etc., WALTER J. HOWELL. The SECRETARY, _Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee, 7, Whitehall Gardens, S. W._ * * * * * This finishes the history of the action of the board of trade in relation to the provision of boat accommodation on emigrant ships. The outstanding circumstance in it is the omission, during so many years, to revise the rules of 1894 and this, I think, was blameable, notwithstanding the excuse or explanation put forward by Sir Alfred Chalmers. I am, however, doubtful whether even if the rules had been revised the change would have been such as to have required boat accommodation which would have increased the number of lives saved. Having regard to the recommendations of the advisory committee, the board of trade would probably not have felt justified in making rules which would have required more boat accommodation than that with which the _Titanic_ was actually provided; and it is not to be forgotten that the _Titanic_ boat accommodation was utilized to less than two-thirds of its capacity. These considerations, however, afford no excuse for the delay of the board of trade.