§ MR. NICOL (Argyll)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the French Government propose, in order to provide a school for the education of seamen for their navy, to give a bounty or compensation d'armament to all ships built or owned in France; and, if so, what it would amount to on a vessel of 4,000 tons in commission for a year; whether it is proposed, in order to promote the building and owning in France of merchant ships, to materially increase the existing bounty system; and, if so, what is the amount proposed to be given to a new steamer of 4,000 tons gross register running 6,000 miles in a year; and what are the terms of the present bounties given to vessels built and owned in France?
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. ST. JOHN BRODRICK, Surrey, Guildford)We have received no official information to the effect of the first two paragraphs of the Question, but a Report from Her Majesty's Ambassador at Paris will be called for. Full particulars (which are too long to be given within the limits of a reply to a Question) as to the terms of the present French bounties on shipping will be found at page 19 of the Reports already laid before Parliament (Commercial, No. 2, 1898).