efit of marines, as follows: "two-thirds to the provident fund,
with a view to diminishing the deductions on mariners' pay and to
increasing the funds for assisting the victims of shipwreck and other
accidents, or their families; one-third to the invalids' fund, with a
view to granting subventions to the chambers of commerce or public
institutions for the creation and support of sailors' homes in French
ports, intended to assist the nautical population, or of any other
institutions likely to be of use to them, especially schools for
seamen." The requirement in the old law of 1793 as to the composition of
the crews of French merchant ships was modified, reducing the proportion
of sailors who must be Frenchmen.

French-built ships were privileged to chose between the shipping and the
navigation bounties. To obtain the shipping bounty for the maximum of
three hundred days steamers must make during the year a minimum of
thirty-five thousand miles if engaged in the overseas trade, or
twenty-five thousand if in "_cabotage international_."[CA] Shipowners
agreeing to maintain on routes not served by the subsidized main
steamers a regular line, performing a fixed minimum of journeys per
year, with vessels of a certain age and tonnage, were permitted to
claim, in lieu of the regular bounties, a fixed subsidy during the term
of their agreement, equal to the average of the bounties to which the
vessels in commission would be entitled for the whole of the journeys
performed. The new tonnage to be admitted to the benefit of the law was
limited to three hundred thousand gross tons of steamers and one hundred
thousand gross tons of sailing-ships; of which new tonnage freight-built
ships could form two-fifths. The appropriation for the payment of the
bounties was also limited, to guard against a too heavy burden upon the
national treasury. This was fixed at two hundred million francs: one
hundred and fifty million for the shipping and navigation bounties and
fifty million for the construction bounties.[CB]

Unforeseen results of an unsatisfactory nature followed the application
of this law. Professor Viallates effectively states them in the fewest
words:

"To be sure of profiting by the advantages of the law the
ship-owners hastened to order vessels and to place them on the
stocks. Their haste increased when it was seen that there existed
a considerable discrepancy between the allowed tonnage and the
money ap