Manual of Ship Subsidies | Page 7

highest type of ocean liners that had to that time been
produced (the highest type then being German-built steamers operating
under the German flag), the Cunard Company were resubsidized with a
special fixed subsidy of three-quarters of a million dollars a year,
instead of the Admiralty subvention of about seventy-five thousand
dollars, and in addition to their regular mail pay, the subsidy to run for
a period of twenty years after the completion of the second of two
high-grade, high-speed ocean "greyhounds" called for for the Atlantic
trade. 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. In these
estimates the larger items were: for service between Canada and Great
Britain; Australia by the Pacific; Canadian Atlantic ports and Australia
and New Zealand; South Africa; Mexico by the Atlantic, and by the
Pacific; West Indies and South America; China and Japan; Canada and
France.[AY] The home Government pays the same amount as Canada
toward maintaining the China and Japan, and British West Indies
services.[AZ] The fisheries bounties amounted to one hundred and
sixty thousand dollars in 1909.[BA]
* * * * *
The grand total of subsidies and subventions paid by Great Britain and
all her colonies in 1911 approximate ten million dollars annually. The
subsidies and mail pay of the Imperial Government amounted, in round
numbers, to four million dollars, of which, in 1910, the Cunard
Company received seven hundred and twenty-nine thousand
dollars.[BB] Besides the Admiralty subventions, retainer bounties are
paid to merchant seamen and fishermen of the Royal Naval Reserve.
Since the establishment of steam in regular ocean navigation, and the
substitution of iron for wooden ships, England has maintained her
leadership among the maritime nations. The total tonnage of the United
Kingdom and her colonies, steam and sailing ships, in 1910-11, stood
at 19,012,294 tons.[BC] nearly four fold that of any other nation.
FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: Royal Meeker, "History of Ship Subsidies."]
[Footnote B: John E. Green, "Short History of the English People."]
[Footnote C: W.H. Lindsay, "History of Merchant Shipping."]
[Footnote D: Lindsay.]
[Footnote E: David A. Wells, "Our Merchant Marine," p. 96.]
[Footnote F: John Lewis Ricardo, "The Anatomy of the Navigation
Laws," p. 111.]
[Footnote G: Lindsay, vol. III.]
[Footnote H: Lindsay, "Our Navigation Laws"; also his History.]
[Footnote I: Ricardo; also Lindsay in other words.]
[Footnote J: Meaning the waters between Great Britain and the
continent.]
[Footnote K: Green, p. 593.]
[Footnote L: Ricardo, p. 26.]
[Footnote M: Meeker.]
[Footnote N: W.W. Bates, "American Marine," pp. 57-59.]
[Footnote O: John Macgregor, "Commercial Tariffs."]
[Footnote P: Lindsay, vol. III, p. 65.]
[Footnote Q: Macgregor.]
[Footnote R: Lindsay, vol. III, p. 69; also pp. 53-54 and 107.]
[Footnote S: Rear-Admiral George H. Preble, "Chronological History

of Steam Navigation."]
[Footnote T: Preble. Lindsay says thirty-seven.]
[Footnote U: Preble, p. 137; also Bates, p. 185.]
[Footnote V: Meeker.]
[Footnote W: Parliamentary papers 1839, vol. XLVI, no. 566, as to the
private contract.]
[Footnote X: Lindsay, vol. IV.]
[Footnote Y: Meeker; also Parl. papers 1849, vol. XII, no. 571.]
[Footnote Z: Lindsay, vol. X; also Parl. papers, report H. of C., Aug.,
1840.]
[Footnote AA: Report of Select Com. (1846) Parl. papers, vol. XV, no.
565, p. 3.]
[Footnote AB: Lindsay, vol. IV.]
[Footnote AC: The Princeton, sloop-of-war fitted with the Ericsson
screw, launched the same year.]
[Footnote AD: Lindsay, vol. IV, p. 198, note.]
[Footnote AE: John R. Spears, "The Story of the American Merchant
Marine," pp. 254-255.]
[Footnote AF: William Wheelwright, of Newburyport, Massachusetts,
sometime American consul at Guayaquil.]
[Footnote AG: Winthrop L. Marvin, "The American Merchant Marine,"
p. 231; also Preble; and Lindsay, vol. IV, pp. 316-330.]
[Footnote AH: Marvin, p. 231.]

[Footnote