A Departmental Committee has also been appointed by the Treasury
to inquire into shipping risks in time of war. The, Committee is instructed to consider and report (1) whether it is desirable that the State should undertake to make good to shipowners and traders losses incurred through the capture. Of shipping by the enemy in time of war ; (2) if so, whether such indemnity shoUld be granted gratuitously, or should be coupled with the payments of premiums calculated to recoup the State ; (3) what conditions should be attached to the grant
of the indemnity, and what arrangements should be made for the proper working of the same. Mr. Austen Chamberlain is to act as Chairman, and the members include Sir R. B. Tinley, Sir Thomas Glen Coats, M.P., Sir George S. Clarke, Sir George Murray, Mr. Henry Gladstone, and Mr. Frederick Huth Jackson. We have always contended that by far the best way of settling the difficulty is for the Government to endorse every ordinary marine policy of insurance on British goods and British vessels with an additional in- surance against capture or destruction .by the enemy. The result would be that a declaration of war would leave our shippers and merchants undisturbed, and prevent any dan- gerous panic. That is exactly what we want to aim at. The obligation likely to fall on the Exchequer would be very small compared with the ruin resulting from the panic caused by a few captures, or even by the mere fear of captures which never took place.
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