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."[CF] Says Viallates:

"The system is calculated to secure regular and rapid postal
communication with certain countries beyond seas, and at the same
time to constitute an auxiliary fleet capable of being utilized
by the navy in times of war. The existence of fixed lines with
constant service is also a means of favoring the expansion of the
national commerce. The State obtains, moreover, in exchange for
the subsidy, direct advantages; the free carriage of the mails
and the funds of the public treasury; transport of officials at a
reduced price, and of arms and stores destined for the service of
the State."

Meeker:

"The greater part of the concealed subventions undoubtedly goes
to the shipbuilders, for all mail contract steamers must be built
in French yards and of French materials. These first costs are
estimated to be from twenty-five to fifty per cent greater in
France than in England."[CG]

There is no competition in the letting of the French mail contracts.
They go to four steamship concerns. For many years more than one half of
the total steam tonnage of France has been owned by these four
subsidized lines: the _Compagnie Generale Transatlantique_, the