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10. These estimates do not take into account the destruction of public property belonging to the Railway and Naval Service Departments of Your Excellency's Government nor do they include the loss to shipping in the harbour of Halifax. Your Commissioners have been unable to obtain at the date of this report an accurate account of these losses but they are of opinion that they may be safely estimated at not exceeding $10,000,000. Inasmuch as the shipping losses must be substantially met by Marine and War Risk insurance and the restoration of public property is a matter in any event for Your Excellency's Government, your Commissioners have not thought it necessary to take into account these items of loss, except for the purpose of affording general information as to the extent of the whole loss which therefore they estimate (excluding any sums to provide for indemnification for loss of life and personal injury) at the sum of $25,000,000.

11. Your Commissioners are of the opinion that a sustentation fund to provide for the support of those who have been maimed or otherwise injured and of those who have been deprived through the disaster of their bread winners should be a charge on the general relief funds now in the hands of your Commissioners subject only to the sums required for immediate and temporary relief in respect of which an estimate of $4,000,000 has been made as stated in paragraph 6 of this report. Such provision must in the opinion of your Commissioners rank in priority to indemnification for material losses, and it is by reason of necessity for the making of this provision either by the establishment of such a fund or by providing otherwise for the maintenance and care of the victims of the disaster that it is urgently submitted that a prompt decision be made by Your Excellency's Government as to the general policy to be adopted.

It is impossible at this date to determine with any degree of accuracy the amount of the capital sum necessary to be set aside to provide such a fund, but it is apparent in view of the foregoing statement of available funds and the amount required for emergency relief and to provide indemnity against the material losses incurred that the work of rendering material assistance toward the permanent repair of buildings and of provision for compensation for destroyed personal property and the restoration of demolished and burned buildings is difficult and almost impracticable if a partial distribution only is made on the basis of present resources.

12. Your Commissioners are of the opinion that in view of the circumstances surrounding the events of December sixth and in this report further alluded to the victims of the disaster should eventually be provided for on the general basis of the Orders in Council Establishing Military Pensions; and your Commissioners suggest that they be permitted to provide reasonable allowances during the current year with a view to the gradual adjustment of such allowances to the basis of that Act, and that they be authorized to make an announcement to the effect that dependents will be provided for accordingly subject to such modifications as may hereafter be deemed wise after due investigation by your Commissioners and upon further report.

13. Assuming that this policy is adopted by Your Excellency in Council your Commissioners will be in a position to announce that there is now available a sufficient fund to restore or provide compensation for the destroyed homes and contents and that there will be required an additional sum of approximately only $6,000,000 to provide for the restoration of destroyed and damaged schools, churches, charitable and other institutions, business property, municipal buildings and manufacturing plants.

14. The position of holders of policies in fire insurance companies is a complicated and difficult one. It is understood that the underwriters have repudiated liability for all losses on the ground that the damages were caused not by fire but by explosion. Some of the policies of insurance by their terms clearly exclude loss occasioned by such a disaster; but in the case of of the majority of the contracts the matter of liability is an open question. In cases where fire followed the explosion the insurance companies contend that the indemnity should be limited to the amount of the actual loss to the insured by fires which followed after the buildings were prostrated by the explosion. In a great many cases indemnity on such a basis would be inconsiderable in amount in proportion to the value of the property and the insurance at risk. The legal questions involved are your Commissioners are advised unusually difficult and unless some common ground can be found the ensuing litigation is likely to be protracted and uncertain and it will be unfortunate in the extreme if the small householder has to await the outcome of such litigation.

15. The Compensation Board constituted under The Nova Scotia Workmen's
Compensation Act have assumed liability in respect of workmen who at the time of the accident were engage in their usual avocations. It is stated that a capital sum of nearly $1,000,000 will be required to meet the liability imposed by this Act upon industries of Nova Scotia which are charged with meeting by assessment the com- [compensation]