3o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



perity have molted away ; the French mercantile marine has ceased to 

 grow ; and the whole scheme has proved so disastrous a failure that 

 the late Paul Bert, the eminent French legislator and orator, in a 

 speech in the French Assembly, seriously undertook to defend the 

 French war of invasion in Tonquin, on the ground that its continuance 

 would afford employment for the new French mercantile marine, which 

 otherwise, we have a right to infer, in his opinion would have re- 

 mained idle. 



The exjDorience of the mercantile marines of Europe during recent 

 years affords the following curious results : It shows, first, that the 

 payment of bounties has practically availed nothing in arresting the 

 continued decrease in sailing-tonnage ; seco?id, that in the eight years 

 prior to 1880, French shipping, in its most valuable branch — steam — in- 

 creased faster than the shipping of any of its Continental competitors ; 

 but after 1880, the increase in the steam-marine of Germany, where no 

 bounties were paid, was relatively greater both in number and tonnage 

 of vessels than in France where large bounties were given after 1881 ; 

 and was also greater as respects the aggregate tonnage of all vessels — 

 sail and steam. The obvious expectation of the French Government 

 in resorting to the bounty system for shipping was that ships built 

 and navigated with the aid of the bounties, would carry French manu- 

 factures into foreign countries, and thus open new markets for domes- 

 tic products. But experience, thus far, has shown that all that has 

 been effected is a transfer, to some extent, of the carriage of goods 

 formerly brought in foreign vessels, to French vessels. But, on the 

 other hand, the increase of tonnage, under the stimulus of the boun- 

 ties, beyond the requirements of traffic, and the consequent reduction 

 of freights, has entailed " a loss, and not a gain to the French nation ; 

 by throwing upon it the burden of a shipping interest that, but for 

 the Government aid, would have been unprofitable, and which, be- 

 cause of such aid, can not conform itself to the demands of trade." * 



The experience of Great Britain, occupying as she has, the position 

 of being the only country in the world of lar(/e production and com- 

 merce which has not within recent years imposed restrictions on the 

 competitive sale of foreign products in her markets, is also exceedingly 

 interesting and instructive. That British trade and production has 

 been injured by attempts in the nature of forced sales on the part of 

 competitors in protected countries to dispose of their surplus products 

 in the English duty-free markets — while the tariffs of their own coun- 

 tries have shielded them from reprisals — and that from like causes Great 

 Britain has experienced severe foreign competition in neutral markets 

 where British trade had formerly almost exclusive possession, can not 

 be doubted. Thus, the report of the British Commission " On the De- 

 pression of Trade and Industry" (1886) shows that the importation 



* " Report on the Mercantile Marines of Foreign Countries," by Worthington C. Ford. 

 U. S. Department of State Ex. Doc., 1886. 



