ABSTRACT
IN the year 1912, two years before the last Great War, the wreck of British ships at sea caused the loss of more than 2,300 lives. 1912-that was the year which included the heart-rending loss of the Titanic, when 1,500 passengers and crew went down. Since that time, in the short space of thirty years, science has made discoveries which have greatly .. reduced the hazards of shipwreck in the vast ocean expanses. I need only remind YOU of the developments in radio and other ways of signalling, whereby those in distress can indicate tli.eir position to ships over distances of many miles. Then we have the modem aeroplane, which travels at such great speed, that it can rapidly search enormous areas. In consequence, the risks at sea, in normal times of peace, are now very small compared with what they were thirty or forty years ago, when rescue depended largely on the chance ofbeing sighted by some ship passing nearby.
