This law provided for general construction subsidies, on the following scale: for steamers and sailing-ships built of iron or steel, sixty lire ($11.58) per gross ton; for steam or sailing ships built of wood, fifteen lire; for galleggianti (floating material: the term signifying merchant ships navigating the Italian seaboard, rivers, and lakes, but not provided with certificates of nationality), of iron or steel, thirty lire; for construction and repairs of marine engines, ten lire per quintal; for marine boilers, six lire per hundred kilograms of weight. These bounties were to be increased from 10 to 20 per cent (according to the degree of speed and other desirable qualities shown) for steamers built on plans approved by the Government engineers as to be convertible into cruisers, showing a speed of not less than fourteen knots an hour, and with sufficient coal-carrying space to steam four thousand miles at ten knots. The law was applicable to ships bought abroad as well as those of domestic build. But it forbade the sale or charter to a foreigner of any steamer upon which the bounty had been paid, except by Government permission. The laws of 1866 granting premiums and free entry to shipbuilding materials were suspended during the ten years' term of this act.[[DR]]
In 1888, a new tariff of the previous year (July, 1887) having increased the customs duties on shipbuilding materials, additional bounties on construction and repair were granted by a royal decree to offset these disadvantages to the shipbuilders. A provision was added for the payment of fifty lire per gross ton for construction of war-ships, and eight and a half-lire per horsepower for engines, nine and a half lire per quintal for boilers, and eleven lire per quintal for other apparatus, to be used in war-ships. Navigation bounties were also added to Italian ships as follows: 0.65 lire per gross ton for every thousand sea miles run beyond the Suez Canal or the Strait of Gibraltar to or from ports outside of Europe; the same for ships sailing between one continent with its adjacent islands and another continent with its adjacent islands, outside the Mediterranean. Sailing-ships of above fifteen years of age were ineligible to these bounties; so also were mail-route steamers.[[DS]]
In 1896, after the expiration of this law, a new law was enacted (July 23) closely modelled upon it. The construction subsidies were the same, except that war-ships built for foreign countries were debarred from receiving bounties. The navigation subsidy per gross ton for every thousand sea miles sailed beyond the Suez Canal and the Strait of Gibraltar was increased to 0.80 lire, the rate to be diminished by ten centimes for steamers and fifteen centimes for sailing-ships every three years. An important addition was the reënactment of the customs rebates on shipbuilding materials. This law was also to be in force ten years.[[DS]]
In 1900 (November 16) a royal decree was issued modifying the law of 1896 in several particulars. No bounty was hereafter to be allowed to vessels built in Italian yards for foreigners. The customs drawbacks were abrogated, and in place of them was granted a bounty of five lire per quintal of metal used in repairs. A bounty of fifty-five lire per gross ton was offered for iron or steel steamers showing a speed of above fifteen knots; fifty lire, for steamers speeding twelve to fifteen knots; forty-five lire, for steamers or sailing-ships with speed below twelve knots; and thirteen lire per net ton for modern hulls. The navigation subsidies per gross ton per thousand miles, were thus fixed: for steamers, forty centimes up to the fifteenth year after construction; for sailing-ships, twenty centimes up to the twenty-first year after construction. The yearly distances run for which the bounties were to be paid were limited to thirty-two thousand miles for a steamer below twelve knots; forty thousand for one of twelve to fifteen knots; fifty thousand above fifteen knots, and ten thousand for a sailing-ship. All Italian ships were eligible to this bounty; foreign ships were debarred. The maximum expenditure for all the bounties was limited to ten million lire ($2,000,000) a year.
In 1910 (May) a new subsidy bill was enacted providing for the continuance of the arrangement under the measure of 1900, with a few immaterial modifications.[[DT]] Early in 1911 the Government was reported to have in readiness ten bills looking to the support of domestic shipping and shipbuilding. Eight of these had relation to the increase of subsidy on the Italian mail and cargo service of the Mediterranean. Other routes subsidized included lines to Central America, Chile, Canada. Domestic shipbuilding was to be aided to the extent of twelve hundred and forty thousand dollars.[[DU]]
Italy's mail subvention system dates from 1877, when the Italian steamship companies by a convention (July 15) consolidated with the Government.[[DV]] All the lines receiving the mail subsidy came to be owned by a single powerful corporation, the Italian General Navigation Company. While the rates paid per mile are not so high as those paid by several other countries, the requirements as to size of vessels, speed, and amount of service to be rendered, are less exacting. Accordingly these subventions are in fact, as Professor Meeker recognizes them, "partly in the nature of concealed bounties." In 1879 the Government spent in these subventions a total equalling $1,593,214. By 1889 the total had only slightly increased, the amount that year being $1,849,392. In 1908 the total was $2,328,917. The mail steamships are required to carry government civil and military employees at half price.
Previous to 1896 the Italian General Navigation Company owned more than half of the Italian steam tonnage, and most of the large steamships.[[DW]] After 1896 the sail tonnage steadily increased. In 1905 it was recorded that "the Italian flag now flies over some of the best modern transatlantic liners in the port of New York; the Mediterranean is full of Italian ships; and the Lloyd Italiano has five new ten-thousand-ton steamers nearly ready for service in South America."[[DX]] Between 1890 and 1910 the Italian gross tonnage increased from 809,598 tons to 1,320,653 tons.[[DY]]
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