Report of the Committee on Colour-Vision. 321 



sailors should be examined as to their colour- vision. I do not 

 include firemen and stokers. At the present time individual ship- 

 owners have the men in their employ tested ; but this is of little 

 avail unless all men in every company are tested, for it takes 

 two ships to make a collision. 



The Chairman : Have you ever thought whether it is feasible 

 by altering the coloured signals, say by substituting a flashing 

 light as in the army, the difficulty might be got over ? 



The Witness : Yes, I have thought of it, but I believe it to be 

 impracticable. The shipping men themselves say so. In this 

 question of coloured light there is one eminent gentleman who 

 has, in my opinion, done much harm. Admiral Colomb has been 

 a great power in preventing this subject of colour-blindness 

 receiving the attention it deserves. I have in Pamphlet 2, 

 page 11, given my reasons for believing the means recommended 

 by "Select Committees for the Prevention of Loss of Life at 

 Sea " are and must remain futile so long as the very essential of 

 safety, namely, perfect eyesight on the part of officers and men, 

 is ignored. Admiral Colomb thinks differently, but, as I believe, 

 wrongly, and I would have no hesitation in taking* the popular 

 vote on the point between us. In the course of an able paper 

 delivered by him on the subject of the Washington Maritime 

 Conference, at the Society of Arts, and reported in The Times of 

 March 28th, 1890, he made the following remark: — 



" As to the qualifications for officers and seamen, the Conference 

 (Washington) dealt wholly with the question of colour-blindness 

 on account of its danger with reference to the red and green 

 side lights. He never knew himself a case of collision where 

 colour-blindness was in question. The statements were generally 

 perfectly clear that wrong helm was given deliberately in the 

 face of the colour seen, and as no authoritative teaching had 

 existed to show that it mattered what colour was seen so long 

 as danger was denoted, he had never been able to lay stress on 

 the colour-blind question." 



Mr. Baden Powell, E.KR., who followed in debate declared 

 "that in all cases of collision at sea there was no default of the 

 rule of the road at sea, but they generally arose from negligence. 

 The rule of the road at sea was perfectly well understood by 

 intelligent men, and it was the ' lubbers ' and the careless who 

 did not act according to it. : ' 



Admiral de Horsey considered " collisions at sea were caused 

 principally by three faults — a bad look-out, ignorance of the 

 rules, and neglect of the rules." 



In his reply Admiral Colomb "expressed his opinion that 

 collisions at night occurred through the helm being ported to 

 the green light, and starboarded to the red ; and he could not 

 agree that the collisions occurred wholly through negligence, 

 for he thought that they largely occurred because our seamen 

 were not taught what they should do, and the collisions occurred 

 through ignorance." 



