During the war the French Mercantile Marine was used entirely for the prosecution of the one great cause, but France lost during that period 1,129,000 out of 2,556,000 tons of merchant shipping with which she commenced hostilities. This has been more serious for France, because whilst during hostilities the shipyards of Great Britain, the United States and Japan were able to carry on building, the French yards were almost exclusively engaged in manufacturing for their armies. In fact, they were unable to launch more than 143,000 tons throughout the war, though afterwards about a hundred ships were ordered in Great Britain, representing nearly 500,000 tons. The French Mercantile Marine to-day consists of between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 tons. Of this the fine big Atlantic liners running to New York make up a fair proportion, especially when we think of the 34,568-ton _Paris_, one of the largest liners afloat, and a singularly impressive ship to behold. As a result of the war Germany had to hand over to the Allies 521 ships, of nearly 3,000,000 tons displacement; and of these France was allotted 116, amounting to about 500,000 tons. But the greater part of her merchant fleet is based on the Mediterranean, running from Marseilles to the Black Sea, and her possessions in Asia and the Pacific, West Africa, and to North and South America. Most of her exports go to her colonies; and the short voyages across the Mediterranean to Algeria and Morocco, transporting corn, wine, sheep and vegetables, will ever be a valuable means of employing small tonnage ships. But it has needed a war to teach France that the whole of her shipbuilding and marine transportation required overhauling and revising. Her shipping industry was based rather on the policy of making profits out of other industries than of becoming a means of creating new trade routes and fresh avenues to wealth. It is only now that she is realising the riches of her colonies which merely wait to be developed fully. To France, curiously enough, belonged the honour of owning the largest and finest sailing ship in the world. This was the _La France_. Fitted with auxiliary motors in the early days of the combustion engine, these were afterwards removed. She sailed out to the Pacific in 1922, but had the misfortune to pile up on a New Caledonian reef close to her destination and became a total wreck. Thus perished the last link France had with its former race of brilliant designers of sailing ships.