GREAT BRITAIN'S FOOD SUPPLIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2842, 2 September 1908, Page 43

GREAT BRITAIN'S FOOD SUPPLIES.

LONDON, July 10. The committee on the question of a guarantee against wax risks on shipping has reported adversely to the State undertaking «ny such liability. The committee was a strong one. Mr Austen Chamberlain was chairman, and the other members included

Sir R. Finlay, Sir George H. Murray, Sir G. Sydenham Clarke, Mr J. L. M'Kay, i Sir Charles L. Ottley (a great naval strate- ! gist), Mr Llewellyn Smith, and Mr Herbert I Gladstone. j The committee declares itself 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. "We recognise," says tho committee, " that in the mass of evi-

dence given or recorded in the Blue Booka of the Royal Commission on Food Supplies, there is much which would support a different conclusion from that at which we have arrived, but, after giving full weight to these diverse opinions, we are of opinion that it is not desirable that the State should undertake to make good to shipowners or traders the losses incurred by them through the capture of shipping by the enemy in time of war. It is obvious, it is pointed out, that any national

guarantee for losses offers a very imperfect remedy for this particular evil. " Such guarantee would tend to prevent shipowners from laying up or transferring their ships, but could not of itself secure the safe arrival of ships and cargoes. This is the work of the naw, and the navy alone, and it is important that nothing should be allowed to obscure this vital portion of ite duty." It k further urged that the fact that the merchant or the shipowner was com-

pensated by the State for hie loss would afford no relief to the nation which was deprived of its supplies. As for the national indemnity, after examining the various schemes for a contributory insurance, the committee comes to the conclusion that none of them is practicable, and that a national indemnity, if given, must be a free indemnity. This aspect of the work of the navy is too much ignored; the policing of the eeas by a supreme navy is essential to England's very existence.