propriated. The appropriation of one hundred and fifty
million francs, opened to assure the payment of the navigation
bounties and the compensation for outfit, was much too little.
The rush was such, as soon as this formidable mistake was
discovered, that, less than nine months after its promulgation,
from December 20, 1902, the useful effect of the law was
completely exhausted."!

Thereupon resort was had to another Extra-Parliamentary commission to
frame another system. The result was a law of 1906 (April), which
separated the shipbuilder from the shipowner. The provisions for the
construction bounty were redrawn with the object, as Professor Viallates
explains,[CC] "not only to equalize the customs duties affecting the
materials employed, but also to give the builders a compensation
sufficient to enable them to concede to the French shipowners the same
prices as foreign builders." The rates were thus fixed on gross
measurement: for iron and steel steamships, one hundred and forty-five
francs per ton; for sailing-ships, ninety-five francs per ton: these
bounties to decrease annually to four francs and fifty centimes for
steamships and three francs ninety centimes for sailing-ships during the
first ten years of the law's application, thereafter to stand at one
hundred francs and sixty-five francs, respectively; for engines and
auxiliary apparatus, twenty-seven francs fifty centimes per hundred
kilograms. The navigation bounty to owners of French or foreign-built
ships under the French flag, was calculated per day of actual running:
for steamships, four centimes per ton gross up to 3000 tons; three
centimes more up to 6000; two more to 6000 and above; for sailing-ships,
three centimes per ton up to 500 tons, two more up to 1000, and one more
to 1000 and above. This bounty to continue for the first twelve years of
the law. The provisions for fostering speed development in steamships
excluded from compensation those making on trial, half laden, less than
nine knots, in place of ten in the previous law; reduced the rate to
fifteen per cent of the bounty for those showing more than nine and less
than ten knots; and increased this rate by ten per cent for those making
at least fourteen knots, by twenty-five per cent for fifteen knots, and
thirty per cent for sixteen knots. The extra bounty equal to twenty-five
per cent of the regular navigation bounty to steamships constructed on
plans approved