ded 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upon payment of the two-franc tax per ton, were repealed.[BM] In 1873 an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