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 Générale Transatlantique_, the
_Compagnie des Messagéries Maritimes_, the _Chargeurs Réunis_, and the
_Compagnie Fraissant_.[CG]

The great ship-yards have developed a capacity for building steamships
of the largest class. The tonnage since 1881, when it had fallen to
914,000 tons, had increased only to 1,052,193 tons in 1900. By 1910-11,
it had reached 1,882,280 tons.[CH] The total mail subsidies average, in
round numbers, five million dollars a year, while the construction and
navigation bounties amount to three and a half million dollars
additional.

Practically every French vessel floating the French flag and engaged in
foreign trade either receives or has received subsidies, or bounties,
from the Government.[CI]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote BD: Meeker.]

[Footnote BE: Lindsay, vol. III.]

[Footnote BF: Rear-Admiral Alfred T. Mahan, "The Influence of Sea Power