The total cost of the French bounty system in the twenty-four years from its establishment with the law of 1881 to 1904, when the law of 1902 had practically run out, was in round numbers upward of three hundred and eighty-one million francs. Professor Viallatés shows that the new law of 1906 would absorb during the first seven years of its application, upward of eighty-four million francs.[CE] These construction and navigation bounties are exclusive of the subventions to steamships for carrying the mails. The establishment of the French postal ocean steamship subsidy system dates back to 1857, when a contract was made with the Union Maritime Company for a service to New York, Mexico, and the West Indies. The assertion is made by Professor Meeker that the French postal subventions paid "ostensibly for the furtherance of the mails," are "both greater in amount and more influential upon shipbuilding, navigation, and commerce than are the general premiums upon shipbuilding and navigation."[CF] Says Viallatés: "The system is calculated to secure regular and rapid postal communication with certain countries beyond seas, and at the same time to constitute an auxiliary fleet capable of being utilized by the navy in times of war. The existence of fixed lines with constant service is also a means of favoring the expansion of the national commerce. The State obtains, moreover, in exchange for the subsidy, direct advantages; the free carriage of the mails and the funds of the public treasury; transport of officials at a reduced price, and of arms and stores destined for the service of the State." Meeker: "The greater part of the concealed subventions undoubtedly goes to the shipbuilders, for all mail contract steamers must be built 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.]