have been a more effective mode of training and maintaining the requisite number of seamen for the Royal Navy as well as the Merchant Service. The Commissioners were also of opinion that, though not strictly within the scope of their inquiry, a self-supporting pension fund "well deserved the attention of Government."[1]
The desertion of seamen in foreign ports was a matter which, in the opinion of the Commissioners, "deserved the serious attention of the Government, inasmuch as British ships are now often obliged to sail on their return voyage, when heavily laden, with insufficient or incompetent crews," and they recommended entering into arrangements with foreign governments for some international conventions which should have for their object the prevention of desertion and the enforcement of better discipline in our ships when abroad.
Marine Insurance. The question also of marine insurance was one which received most careful consideration. The Commissioners felt that while the system protects Shipowners against losses which would otherwise be ruinous, it tends to render them less careful in the management of their ships, and they were, evidently, alive to the fact that it relieved the Shipowner from all loss, when his ship foundered at sea, and frequently enabled him to derive a pecuniary profit from shipwreck. But to this difficult and important question I shall fully refer hereafter, as also to the system of advance notes inquired into by the Commission.
- ↑ See Report, 'Manning the Navy.'
