Registering under

"19th November 1880.

"Here friends of my own have been applied to for liberty to register French flag. their vessels under the French flag in order to earn the bounty. A 1000 tons vessel would get about £1000 bounty for an Australian voyage. A builder would get about £2500 bounty for building her in France."

French aim

at British

consting

trade.

Large inducements.

A strong Liberal's opinion,

"Your inquiries regarding the privileges accorded to French packets not touching French ports, but in fact engaged in British coasting business, can all be answered in the affirmative."

"26th November 1880.

"The final result will be the same whether our industries are to be throttled by the bounty system, or starved to death by arrangements under which we import foreign manufactures to the exclusion of our own, and from nations that will not purchase the productions of our labour in return."

"30th November 1880.

"In the Shipping Gazette of yesterday's date there is a copy of the memorial on the Shipping Bounties presented to Lord Granville by the deputation which waited on him a day or two ago. It is well worth reading. I believe every word of it is true. It fully confirms all that was said in the Edinburgh Chamber's memorial. . . . My own opinion, however, is that our Government will hesitate to commit themselves to the terms of any treaty until this matter of the bounties is disposed of one way or other."

"9th December 1880,

"The best contribution to the deputation was by Glasgow, and read by Sir Hugh Allan. It proved that a steamer of 2500 tons would make between £8000 and £9000 profit in the United States trade before an English vessel could net one penny! . . . The fetish of free-trade' binds many, and it is very difficult to get many politicians to touch a subject which needs anything else than a shout of 'free-trade for ever!' I saw a Sunderland builder to-day who is at work for the French bounty people."

"1st December 1880.

Edinburgh does not feel to any great extent the effects of the French bounties, and treaty operations, and as a rule people won't move unless their toes are tramped upon. Should the French subsidise the shipping, it will make a greater outcry on the subject, and may lead to good in compelling Government to redress the matter. I think the sugar refiners are very badly used, and their only hope of obtaining redress is by united action and co-operation with other bodies similarly affected. So long as the public get good and cheap sugar, they will not move."

"22d December 1880.

"The shipowners are evidently quite satisfied to haul down the Union Jack on the terms offered, and seem hardly disposed to make

A great steamship owner's manly declarations.

113

even the show of disapprobation or regret. "Auri sacri fames," but the day may come when they will repent of their greed; for I do not doubt that the French Government will eventually (and by degrees, as the bona fide French mercantile marine grows stronger) confine their bounties to French-built and French-owned ships.

"In the meantime, the 'cosmopolitan' teachings are bearing fruit, and that fruit is greed, avarice, and bad citizenship."

tonnage

"Deputations from Marseilles, Bordeaux, Havre, and other ports Amount of have begged M. Léon Say and the Senatorial Committee to expedite building for the Merchant Shipping Bill, on the ground that vessels built abroad France. and registered in France before it passes are to profit by the bounty; that contracts are consequently being executed in English yards, and that a month's delay would enable 50,000 or 100,000 tonnage to get registered in time."-Times, December 1880.

MR. MACIVER, M.P., ON FOREIGN BOUNTIES.1

"We are told, however, that foreign nations, so far from desiring to extend the bounty system to other trades, are uneasy about it as it is, and are feeling their way towards getting rid of it.' But surely those who make such statements must have forgotten what is already proposed by France in regard to shipping. It is a matter of common notoriety that an extension of the bounty system to shipping is actually intended, and by other nations as well as France; but it does not necessarily follow that all British shipowners would suffer by the arrangement. Ships are cosmopolitan, and shipowners are in many ships are instances capitalists to whom the nationality of their vessels matters cosmopolilittle. There are some of us who, on being sufficiently remunerated, will have no objections to transfer our tonnage to the allegiance of a foreign state.

be too effec

tual.

"If the mercantile marine is worth anything as an adjunct to the Bounty will Royal Navy, France, under the proposed extension of the bounty bo system, will soon have the control of a valuable fleet which at present belongs to Great Britain; and if we are as a nation foolish enough to agree to the renewal of a commercial treaty under which such a thing is possible, there is, I think, no way in which France can so cheaply add to her navy as by paying a bounty to British shipowners to procure the transfer of their property to the French flag. . . DAVID MACIVER."1

1 From the Liverpool Daily Courier, 10th December 1880.

H

V.

FRENCH TRADE WITH AUSTRALIA.

"The French Government is at present in negotiation with the company of the Messageries Maritimes for the extension of the packet service from Bourbon to Australia. It has long been desirous of establishing direct communication with New Caledonia, but the expenses of such a direct communication were considered out of proportion to the object. The company having now proposed a more extended area for the new service, it is not improbable that an arrangement may shortly be effected."-The Colonies and India, November 20, 1880.

First Napo

to beet.

66

W.

GROWTH OF WEALTH IN FRANCE.

The bad seasons which have tried all the rest of Western Europe have resulted in France likewise in a series of deficient harvests -the last, as with ourselves, having been probably the worst of the century. France, as is well known, is a country of peasant proprietors, who, it might be thought, would be ill able to bear a series of bad harvests; but, severe a trial as that was, it was not the only one they had to go through. One of the ideas of the First Napoleon in his war leon's idea as to the knife against this country was to encourage the cultivation of beetroot in France, so as to make her independent of West Indian sugar. The idea has borne such good fruit that our own sugar refiners complain of being ruined by the French; and beetroot has become one of the principal crops of many important French districts. Last year this great crop also suffered from the incessant rain and cold. The silk crop, again, was a total failure. And—a still more serious matter -so was that of wine. . . . Under this accumulation of misfortunes almost any agricultural population, however large might be the resources in capital and skill of the individuals composing it, might be expected to suffer distress. How much more, then, 6,000,000 of peasant proprietors? But, as a matter of fact, we have heard comparatively little of distress in France. Not only has there been nothing of the suffering witnessed in Ireland, but there has not even been any extensive inability to meet engagements, such as in England has compelled landlords to grant reductions of rent.

Little distress in France.

"On consulting the French foreign trade statistics, we find that from 1873, when the disturbance caused by the war and the Commune may be supposed to have passed away, to 1875 inclusive, the exports exceeded the imports by from 8,000,000 to 13,500,000 sterling annually. In 1876, however, there was a reversal of the balance of trade, the imports in that year exceeding the exports by 16,500,000

Energy of the French people.

115

sterling. The excess of imports over exports has continued ever since. In 1878 it amounted to £43,646,680; last year it rose to £54,845,200; and in the first nine months of the current year it actually reached £51,177,520. . . . Our purpose rather is to show what has been the effect of the series of bad harvests upon her foreign trade, and how immense must be her accumulated wealth, and how widely diffused must competence be among her people, since she has met all the demands upon her without visible effort. There has not been a bread Contentedriot in any town, there has been no agitation on the part of any class French for a reduction of their burdens, nor any difficulty in collecting the people. taxes. On the contrary, each year ends with a handsome surplus, and each session of the Chambers witnesses a remission of taxation. .

ness of

strength for

"There is one other lesson taught by the figures, which is that, France's when France next engages in war, she will be found a formidable growing adversary even by the most powerful coalition. The greatness of her war. prosperity, and the command she now has of her own destinies, will prevent her from rushing into hostilities with a light heart; if but she is once worked up to the fighting point, her vast army will be supported by wealth and credit equalled only in England and the United States. Even though she has lost Alsace and Lorraine, she now bears her enormous taxation as lightly as she bore the much smaller taxation of 1869. And, if driven to it, she could afford to spend a couple of hundred millions annually over and above her present expenditure for years together without being exhausted." . . . -The Saturday Review, November 6, 1880.

From an Edinburgh paper of 29th December 1880:

"Few nations, however, will be able to look back on the last few Commercial years with the calm satisfaction enjoyed by France. . . . From this prosperity of France. chaotic mass of ruins a new France has emerged, as strong, as prosperous, and seemingly as stable, as any that have gone before it. This consummation has not been brought about by any quiet, inactive growth, but by the determined and energetic action of the French people. . . . There is abundant evidence of Gallic prosperity. The factories are all in full swing, iron and coal fear competition with no country in Europe, and the increase in railway traffic is so great, that the companies in several cases have had to get foreign countries to provide new machinery. The financial statistics of the country show conclusively that the activity displayed in these different branches is of no effervescent or transitory nature, but betokens a real prosperity among the people. . . . Statistics show without doubt that the average Frenchman, in point of economy and commercial enterprise, surpasses most and equals any countryman of Europe. . . . No branch or industry in France has during the last year been extraordinarily active. All that can be said is that railways, mines, factories, farms, and workshops have all been fairly busy."

116

A bounty to
United

builders

X.

THE BOSTON SHIPPING CONVENTION.

[BY ANGLO-AMERICAN CABLE.]

PHILADELPHIA, October 8.

"Mr. William Bates, of Buffalo, opposed the granting of bounties, but, on the other hand, advocated the imposition of discriminating light and other duties on foreign vessels entering American ports.

"Mr. John Price Wetherill, of Philadelphia, said that Congress ought to grant bounties, so that they might compete with England's mailsubsidy system of supporting steamship lines. He said that to run an American Transatlantic steamer it cost $700 monthly in wages more than it did for an English steamer of the same tonnage. He opposed free ships.

"Mr. J. P. Townsend, of the New York Produce Exchange, States ship proposed a compromise to the effect that a 10 per cent. bounty should be given to American shipbuilders; also that the purchase of foreign ships be permitted, provided that a 10 per cent. import duty be imposed on them.

proposed.

Mail steamer subsidies.

Opinion strengthening.

"Mr. Henry Winsor, of the Philadelphia Board of Trade, thought that American shipbuilding should be encouraged, and that the Navigation Laws should remain unchanged. He opposed the admittance of foreign ships, even if an import duty be paid, as this would put the American stamp on something not American. 'We might as well,' he said, 'try to found a family by adopting other men's children.'

"Mr. William H. Webb, of the New York Chamber of Commerce, said that the Americans paid from 90 to 110 million dollars in freights yearly to foreign carriers, and that every European nation encouraged shipping in various ways. He declared that America must do similarly by giving ocean mail subsidies, remitting the unjust duties on ship materials and stores, repealing taxation, reducing the owner's liability, and granting bounties of, say $5 per ton on ships in the foreign trade. He opposed any policy tending to abandon American

shipbuilding.

"Mr. John Ordway, of the Boston Merchants' Association, though not a shipowner, strongly advocated bounties to encourage American shipping.

"Mr. Seth Low, of New York, opposed the granting of bounties as a bold proposition.

"The Townsend compromise was defeated. . . . The proposition was adopted by 63 to 14. . . . The proceedings continue to attract great attention throughout the country. Several of the free-ship advocates went over to the other side on the final vote.-Shipping Gazette, 9th October 1880.