Manual of Ship Subsidies | Page 9

the ordinary customs
duties levied upon the merchandise imported into France in foreign
bottoms, and by the tonnage charges.[BI] A law of March, 1822,
renewed the prohibition against the importation of foreign-built
ships.[BI]
Early under Napoleon III movements toward the adoption of an
economic policy similar to that then established in England were begun,
and shortly a succession of radical changes in the maritime code were
instituted.[BJ] In 1860 a commercial treaty with England was entered
into. In 1861 freedom of access of foreign shipping to the French West
Indies was permitted, subject to the payment of special duties varying
according to the ports whence the goods were brought, or to which they
were imported. Then at length, in 1866, numerous restrictions of the
old code were swept away.[BJ] This law of 1866 (May) admitted
duty-free all materials, raw or manufactured, including boilers and parts
of engines necessary for the construction, rigging, and outfitting of iron
or wooden ships; abolished a premium, or bounty, granted by a law of
1841 (May) on all steam engines manufactured in France intended for
international navigation; admitted to registration foreign-built and fully
equipped ships upon the payment of two francs a ton; abolished all
tonnage duties on foreign ships, except such as had been or might be
levied for the improvement of certain commercial harbors; abolished
the flag surtaxes; opened colonial navigation to foreign ships. 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. This system was applied for the first time in the Merchant
Marine Act passed in January, 1881.
The act of 1881 granted both construction and navigation premiums,
and was limited to ten years. The construction bounties, as was
declared, were given "as compensation for the increased cost which the
customs tariff imposed on shipbuilders" in consequence of the repeal of
the law granting free import of materials by construction; the
navigation bounties, "for the purpose of compensating the mercantile
navy for the service it renders the country in the recruitment of the
military navy." The construction bounties, on gross tonnage, were as
follows: for wooden ships of less than 200 tons, ten francs a ton; of
more than 200 tons, twenty francs; for composite ships, that is, ships
with iron or steel beams and wooden sides, forty francs a ton; for iron
or steel ships, sixty francs; for engines placed on steamers, and for
boilers and other auxiliary apparatus, twelve francs per 100 kilograms;
for renewing boilers, eight francs per 100 kilograms of new material
used; for any modification of a ship increasing its tonnage, the above
rates on the net increase of tonnage.[BO] The navigation bounties were
confined to ships engaged in the foreign trade, and were to be reduced
annually during the ten years' term of the law.[BP] They were thus
fixed: for French-built ships, one franc and fifty centimes a registered
ton for every thousand sea miles sailed the first year, the rate to
diminish each succeeding year of the term seven francs and fifty
centimes on wooden ships, and five centimes on iron and steel ships;

for foreign-built ships owned by Frenchmen admitted to registry,
one-half the above rates; for French-built steamers constructed
according to plans of the Navy Department, an increase of fifteen per
cent above the ordinary rate.[BQ]
The first effect of this law was to stimulate the organization of a
number of new steamship companies, and to occasion activity in
various ship-yards, foreign (English) as well as home, in building
steamships for their service.[BR] Most of the domestic-built iron and
steam tonnage produced during the law's ten years' term was of
steamers.[BS] The tonnage of steamships increased