British Seeking Derelicts.

New York Times 100 years ago today, November 17, 1912:
Capt. Charles of the Lusitania Suggests Extension of Our System.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    LONDON, Nov. 16.— Capt. J. T. W. Charles, the master of the Lusitania, who is taking a vacation while his ship is being overhauled, spent several days in London this week for the purpose of testifying before the Derelicts Committee appointed by the Board of Trade to inquire into the means of reporting and disposing of floating derelicts.
    Admiral Inglefield, Secretary of Lloyd's, stated that during 1911 they had received reports of seventy derelicts all over the world and sixty-one up to Oct. 19, 1912. There were, he said, 1,705 British and foreign vessels fitted with wireless, which was proving of great assistance in reporting derelicts. Reports were also found in the British and foreign press. The Post Office, however, gave no assistance at all to Lloyd's.
    In the United States the reporting of derelicts was regarded as a National duty, but here it lay upon individual shoulders or Lloyd's.
    It would be to the advantage of mariners, said the Admiral, if one authority instead of several were charged with the duty of disseminating information as to derelicts, and he suggested Lloyd's as the best agency to distribute such news.
    Capt. Charles, representing the Liverpool Steamship Owners' Association, said that in seventeen years he had crossed the Atlantic 4,500 times, but had seen only two derelicts. The question of derelicts, he thought, should be taken up internationally. America had three ships patrolling for derelicts. Of these the Seneca came out 350 miles from New York, and he suggested that two international destroyers be provided to patrol east of that position, and the dual duty be put upon these vessels of patrolling the North Atlantic track between April and July, and also report how far south the ice was coming. That was all a vessel wanted to know. The British authorities, he concluded, might be more liberal in regard to the distribution of information from their wireless stations.