’Regulation Run Mad’: The Board Of Trade And The Loss Of The Titanic
| Author | Martin Johnes,Iain McLean |
| Date | 01 December 2000 |
| Published date | 01 December 2000 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9299.t01-1-00228 |
ARTICLES
‘REGULATION RUN MAD’: THE BOARD OF
TRADE AND THE LOSS OF THE TITANIC
IAIN McLEAN AND MARTIN JOHNES
And so a rule which has become established by the safe practice of some
30 years is to be set aside because one exception has occurred in what are
acknowledged to be exceptional circumstances. Surely this is regulation run
mad %. The whole blame should have been placed on the bad look-out’(Sir
Alfred Chalmers, former Nautical Advisor, Board of Trade, ‘Memo on the
finding of the Court of the loss of the Titanic’, c. August 1912, PRO
MT9/920/425. Stress in original).
‘Boats for all’ [is] one of the most ridiculous proposals ever put forward. (R.
D. Holt, MP, partner in Alfred Holt & Co. shipowners, House of Commons,
7 October 1912).
The Board of Trade has got many eyes and many ears, but it does not seem to
have any brains (W. D. Harbinson, counsel for the third-class passengers, British
inquiry transcript, p.738).
Disasters often involve regulatory failure. Somebody was responsible for safety and
failed to ensure it, through negligence or lack of imagination, or both. The loss of
the Titanic is the UK’s best-known and deadliest peacetime disaster. This article
revisits the causes of, and inquiry into, the sinking. It illustrates how the disaster
was an early example of the kind of injustice and regulatory failure that has often
been central in more recent catastrophes. A regulatory body had, in effect, to inquire
into its own shortcomings; therefore too little blame was laid in high places, and
too much in low places. The Titanic report scapegoated the captain of another vessel,
although the question of his blameworthiness was not read into the inquiry’s
instructions until after it had heard him. The shipping industry blocked any serious
discussion of the disaster in Parliament.
Iain McLean is Official Fellow in Politics, Nuffield College, and Professor of Politics, University of
Oxford; Martin Johnes is Research Officer, Nuffield College, Oxford
Public Administration Vol. 78 No. 4, 2000 (729–749)
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
730 IAIN McLEAN AND MARTIN JOHNES
INTRODUCTION
The Titanic disaster has been the subject of a wealth of work ranging from
the sensational to the academic. Investigators have examined the questions
of blame and responsibility (Ballard 1995; Davie 1986; Gardiner and van
der Vat 1995; Dept of Transport 1992). Here we take that subject on by
offering further evidence, analysis and parallels with later disasters. The
core of this paper is an analysis of the preparation, writing, and reception
of the UK official report on the disaster. We show that a regulatory body
had, in effect, to inquire into its own shortcomings; therefore too little blame
was laid in high places, and too much in low places. The Titanic report
scapegoated the captain of another vessel, although the question of his
blameworthiness was not read into the inquiry’s instructions until after it
had heard him. Although there were two Commons debates on the disaster,
Parliament failed to regulate the regulator. We conclude by locating the
Titanic disaster in the current literature on policy failure and regulatory cap-
ture.
Regulation, in its most general definition, is ‘the imposition of economic
controls by government agencies on (usually) private businesses’ (Keeler
and Foreman 1998, pp. 213–22, quoted at p. 213. For the Chicago theory of
economic regulation see Stigler 1971; Peltzman 1976; Breyer and MacAvoy
1987). Governments have regulated businesses for as long as both have
existed. Among the things regulated are price, quantity of goods, quality
of goods, entry and exit of firms, and (most relevant here) safety. Victorian
statutory regulation of transport in the UK began with the first railway
regulation act of 1840. It became much more sophisticated with Gladstone’s
Act of 1844 (McLean and Foster 1992); more controversial with the enforce-
ment of the ‘Plimsoll line’ in the Merchant Shipping Act 1876, and most
compendious with the Merchant Shipping Act 1894, which was the regulat-
ory statute that applied to UK shipping in 1912.
What is regulation for? To that, there are numerous internal and external
answers. The internal answers come from legislators and regulators; the
external, from academic analysts (mostly in Chicago). The internal case for
safety regulation is that consumers lack information about product safety.
A would-be emigrant (or for that matter a would-be first class passenger)
cannot tell by inspection the difference between a safe liner and a danger-
ous one. Therefore it was legitimate, even in the era of laissez-faire, for the
state to impose safety regulations on shipping companies. The external
analysis accepts that the case exists, but adds that all parties will act in
their self-interest. Regulators will support regulation per se because it gives
them a job. Industries will oppose it in so far as it raises their costs, but
support it in so far as it protects existing firms from competitors. Politicians
will maximize what Peltzman called their political support function. Peltz-
man defined it in terms of price and wage regulation, but the definition is
general and may apply to any kind of regulation: ‘the regulator adjusts
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
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