was to be aided to the extent of twelve
hundred and forty thousand dollars.[DU]

Italy's mail subvention system dates from 1877, when the Italian
steamship companies by a convention (July 15) consolidated with the
Government.[DV] All the lines receiving the mail subsidy came to be
owned by a single powerful corporation, the Italian General Navigation
Company. While the rates paid per mile are not so high as those paid by
several other countries, the requirements as to size of vessels, speed,
and amount of service to be rendered, are less exacting. Accordingly
these subventions are in fact, as Professor Meeker recognizes them,
"partly in the nature of concealed bounties." In 1879 the Government
spent in these subventions a total equalling $1,593,214. By 1889 the
total had only slightly increased, the amount that year being
$1,849,392. In 1908 the total was $2,328,917. The mail steamships are
required to carry government civil and military employees at half price.

Previous to 1896 the Italian General Navigation Company owned more than
half of the Italian steam tonnage, and most of the large steamships.[DW]
After 1896 the sail tonnage steadily increased. In 1905 it was recorded
that "the Italian flag now flies over some of the best modern
transatlantic liners in the port of New York; the Mediterranean is full
of Italian ships; and the Lloyd Italiano has five new ten-thousand-ton
steamers nearly ready for service in South America."[DX] Between 1890
and 1910 the Italian gross tonnage increased from 809,598 tons to
1,320,653 tons.[DY]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote DP: Meeker.]

[Footnote DQ: Bismarck's Memorial to the German Reichstag, April, 1881.]

[Footnote DR: U.S. Con. Rept., Jan., 1890, no. 112, pp. 61-62. Also
Meeker.]

[Footnote DS: Meeker.]

[Footnote DT: U.S. Consul J. K. Wood, Venice, in Daily Con. Repts., no.
30, Aug 9, 1910.]

[Footnote DU: U.S. Consul T. St. J. Gaffney, Dresden, Germany, in Daily
Con. Repts., no. 83, April 10, 1911.]

[Footnote DV: Meeker.]

[Footnote DW: Meeker.]

[Footnote DX: U.S. Senate Rept., no. 10, 59th Cong., 1st sess.]

[Footnote DY: Lloyd's Register, 1910-11.]

CHAPTER VIII

SPAIN--PORTUGAL

Spain instituted a ship-construction bounty system in 1880, when her
merchant marine was languishing, and in 1886 a comprehensive system of
mail subventions, contracting for the whole ocean service with a single
steamship company, _La Compania Transatlantica Espanola_.

Pr