The Government were to
lend the money for the construction of the two new ships at the rate of
2-3/4 per cent per annum, the company to repay the loan by annual
payments extending over twenty years. The company on their part pledged
themselves, until the expiry of the agreement, to remain a purely
British undertaking, the management, the stock of the corporation, and
their ships, to be in the hands of or held by British subjects only.
They were to hold the whole of their fleet, including the two new
vessels, and all others to be built, at the disposal of the Government,
the latter being at liberty to charter or purchase any or all at agreed
rates. They were not to raise freights unduly nor to give any
preferential rates to foreigners.[AX] The subsidy is equivalent to about
twenty thousand dollars for an outward voyage of three thousand miles.
* * * * *
Of the British colonies, Canada grants mail and steamship subsidies, and
fisheries bounties. In 1909-10 the Dominion's expenditures in mail and
steamship subsidies amounted to a total equivalent to $1,736,372. The
amount appropriated for 1910-11 increased to $2,054,200; while the
estimates for 1911-12 reached a total of $2,006,206.
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