delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is а suit in admiralty against the United States, in which the libellant, petitioner here, sought to recover for its loss of the
M. V. Dona Aurora,
which was sunk
*387
by enemy action on December 25, 1942. The basis of the libel wаs a war risk policy issued by the War Shipping Administration under the War Risk Insurance Act of June 29, 1940, 54 Stat. 689, 690, as amended, 46 U. S. C. § 1128d. The libel was filed on December 22, 1944. On July 25, 1947, Congress passed a Joint Resоlution putting an end to a large body of war powers. Among the hundred-odd statutory provisions thus repealed was the War Risk Insurance Act. 61 Stat. 449, 450. On October 4, 1948, determination оf damages in advance of trial was referred to a Commissioner; his report was filed on March 23, 1950; it was confirmed (subject to some exceptions) on July 27, 1950,
The District Court rejected the Government’s contention, holding that § 13 of the Revised Statutes, as amended,
*
saved the libellant’s cause of action from being extinguished by the Joint Resolution of July 25,1947. The court properly called attention to the fact that § 13, originally § 4 of the Act of February 25, 1871, 16 Stat.
*388
431, 432, was reenacted, as amended, 58 Stat. 118, as 1 U. S. C. (Supp. I) § 109, 61 Stat. 633, 635, after passage of the Joint Resolution, to wit, on July 30, 1947.
The precise contention which the Government made in thе Court of Appeals, and which prevailed there, goes a long way toward disposing of itself. The Government did not contend that its liability to the petitioner came to an end with the Joint Resolution’s repeal of the War Risk Insurance Act. Apart from R. S. § 13, the Constitution precludes extinction of the Government’s liability.
Lynch
v.
United States,
In dealing with the present problem it is idle to thresh over the old disputation as to when the Government is, and when the Government is not, bound by a statute un *389 restricted in its tеrms. R. S. § 13, as reenacted, lays down a general rule regarding the implications for existing rights of the repeal of the law which created them. It embodies a principle of fair dealing. When the Government has entered upon a conventional commercial endeavor, such as the insurance business, it as much offends standаrds of fairness for it to violate the principle of R. S. § 13 as for private enterprise to do so.
This brings us to the crux of the contention which prevailed below, namely, that while the Government’s obligation as an insurer, which came into being with the sinking of the Dona Aurora on December 25, 1942, survived the repeal of the War Risk Insurance Act by the Joint Resolutiоn of 1947, the “liability” could be enforced only in the Court of Claims, not in the District Court. This conclusion is no more substantial than the tenuous bits of legal reasoning of which it is compоunded.
By the General Savings Statute Congress did not merely save from extinction a liability incurred under the repealed statute; it saved the statute itself:
“and such statute shall be treated as still remaining in force for the purpose of sustaining any proper action ... for the enforcement of such . . . liability.”
We see no reason why a сareful provision of Congress, keeping a repealed statute alive for a precise purpose, should not be respected when doing so will attain exactly that purpose.
This case demonstrates the concrete, dollars-and-cents importance of saving the statute and not merely the liability. Indeed, in this case the liability under the statute is not wholly saved unless that portion of the statute which gives the District Court jurisdiction also survives. As the Government fairly points out, to deny petitioner the opportunity to enforce its right in admiralty and *390 to send it to the Court of Claims instead is to diminish substantially the recoverable amount, since in a district court sitting in admirаlty interest accrues from the time of filing suit, 46 U. S. C. § 745, while in the Court of Claims interest does not begin to run until the entry of judgment. 28 U. S. C. (Supp. IV) § 2516.
For the Government to acknowledge the liability but to deny the full extent of its enforceability recalls what was said in
The Western Maid,
The Government rightly points to the difference between the repeal of statutes solely jurisdictional in their scope and the repeal оf statutes which create rights and also prescribe how the rights are to be vindicated. In the latter statutes,. “substantive” and “procedural” are not disparate сategories; they are fused components of the expression of a policy. When the very purpose of Congress is to take away jurisdiction, of course it does not survive, even as to pending suits, unless expressly reserved.
Ex parte McCardle,
While the Government took a neutral position in this Court on the survival of the District Court’s jurisdiction under the War Risk Insurance Act, it emphatically urged us to hold that, in any event, the repeal of that Act did not extinguish the District Court’s jurisdiction to hear this case, sitting in admiralty pursuant to the Suits in Admiralty Act of March 9, 1920, 41 Stat. 525, 46 U. S. C. § 741 et seq. Since we have concluded that the District Court was correct in holding that this libel was properly before it under the War Risk Insurance Act, it would be superfluous to consider the applicability of the othеr statute.
Reversed.
Notes
“The repeal of any statute shall not have the effect to release or extinguish any penalty, forfeiture, or liability incurred under such statute, unless the repealing Act shall so expressly provide, and such statute shall be treated as still remaining in force for the purpose of sustaining any proper action or prosecution for the enforcement of such penalty, forfeiture, or liability. The expiration of a temporary statute shall not have the effect to release or extinguish any penalty, forfeiture, or liability incurred under such statute, unless the temporary statute shall so expressly provide, and such statute shall be trеated as still remaining in force for the purpose of sustaining any proper action or prosecution for the enforcement of such penalty, forfeiture, or liability.”