The extra bounty equal to twenty-five
per cent of the regular navigation bounty to steamships constructed on
plans approved by the Navy Department, and the provision making all
merchant ships subject to requisition by the Government in case of war,
were retained as in previous laws.[CD] This is the law at present in
force.
The total cost of the French bounty system in the twenty-four years from
its establishment with the law of 1881 to 1904, when the law of 1902 had
practically run out, was in round numbers upward of three hundred and
eighty-one million francs. Professor Viallates shows that the new law of
1906 would absorb during the first seven years of its application,
upward of eighty-four million francs.[CE]
These construction and navigation bounties are exclusive of the
subventions to steamships for carrying the mails. The establishment of
the French postal ocean steamship subsidy system dates back to 1857,
when a contract was made with the Union Maritime Company for a service
to New York, Mexico, and the West Indies. The assertion is made by
Professor Meeker that the French postal subventions paid "ostensibly
for the furtherance of the mails," are "both greater in amount and more
influential upon shipbuilding, navigation, and commerce than are the
general premiums upon shipbuilding and navigation.
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