16 STATE INSURANCE AGAINST WAR RISKS AT SEA 
experience of the most bitter, and on the part of the enemy the 
most brutal, war in which this country has ever engaged : 
‘We look mainly for security to the strength of our Navy; but 
we rely in only a less degree upon the widespread resources of our 
mercantile fleet, and its power to carry our trade, and reach all possible 
sources of supply wherever they exist, and we believe that a guarded 
and well-considered scheme of National Indemnity would act as a 
powerful addition to our resources, because it would tend to keep down 
the cost of transport and therefore go far in the direction of preventing 
high prices in time of war, while at the same time it would be a stimulus 
to the enterprise of British Shipowners.’ 
Notwithstanding this Report, the adoption of a system of 
State guarantee against war risks was still a long way off. 
The Royal Commission recommended that a small expert 
committee should be appointed to investigate the subject and 
to frame a scheme, expressing the hope that there might be no 
undue delay in taking this step and in completing the necessary 
arrangements. Accordingly, in 1907, a Treasury Committee 
was appointed, with Mr. Austen Chamberlain in the chair. 
The proposals for insurance and indemnity were again examined 
with care, but the Committee were ¢ unable to recommend the 
adoption of any form of National Guarantee against the war 
risks of shipping and maritime trade except that which is 
provided by the maintenance of a powerful Navy’. 
On the evidence placed before it, the Treasury Committee 
were dismayed at the apparent administrative difficulties and 
the unknown financial responsibilities attaching to the adop- 
tion of the system ; and these apparent difficulties were made 
to bulk very large. It was maintained by witnesses, who spoke 
with business experience, that the system was useless, unneces- 
sary, and indeed impossible. It was argued that it was useless, 
because the payment by the State of the value of a ship or 
cargo lost could no nothing towards maintaining our supplies. 
[t was even argued by one witness, that to give the shipowners 
the certainty of being compensated if their ships were captured, 
must stimulate them in the pursuit of captors for the ship and 
of the consequent indemnity. But it was forgotten that if we 
were to be fed, war perils must be run, not only by our seamen