The monopoly
of the coasting trade alone was retained for French ships.[BK]
Complaints against these new regulations were promptly raised by
shipbuilders and ship-outfitters,[BK] and in 1870 a Parliamentary
inquiry into their grievances was made. It appeared that shipbuilders,
though enabled to import free such materials as they needed, were
handicapped by numerous and extensive formalities; while the outfitters
were embarrassed by special burdens which the law laid upon them, and
which their British competitors did not have to bear.[BL] In 1872 laws
were passed which reversed much of the act of 1866. A tax of from
thirty to fifty francs a ton measurement was re-imposed on all foreign
ships purchased for registration in France, together with a duty on
marine engines; again a tonnage duty, of from fifty centimes to one
franc, was imposed on ships of any flag coming from a foreign country or
from the French colonies; and the provisions freeing materials for ship
construction, and admitting foreign-built ships to French registration
upon payment of the two-franc tax per ton, were repealed.[BM] In 1873 an
extra-parliamentary commission took up the general question of the state
of the commercial marine,[BN] and the outcome of this inquiry was the
establishment of the system of direct bounties.
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