“4

OCEAN MAIL SERVICE.

The configuration of the Italian peninsula and of the Italian islands
is such that communication in many cases is possible only by sea, and
a considerable part of the Italian subsidies are similar to our payments
 for railroad mails, for star routes, and even for rural free
delivery. There are only about 12,000 miles of railroads in Italy.
Thus the largest single appropriation in the table above is for the
daily steamer between Naples and Palermo. In the mail contracts
with other steamship eompanies the entire payment of 654,000 lire to
the Puglia Company, 100,000 lire to the Napoletana, 138,070 lire to
the Siciliana, and 9,700 lire to La Cava are wholly for services between
 domestic ports. Italy produces no coal, so the expenses of steam
navigation are correspondingly increased. Other expenditures, such
as those to the Navigazione for the routes marked 2, 8, 9, 11, for example,
 are obviously to maintain close connections with Italian possessions
 on the Red Sea, for Italy is no exception to the rule of nations
by which it is considered a national obligation of the first importance
to have superior transportation facilities under the national flag between
 the central government and its remote possessions. The only exception
 is the United States. The contract of the Navigazione Generale
 was for fifteen years from 1893, and the conditions of renewal at
this writing are still under consideration. The speed required ranges
generally on 10 to 18 knots. The rate of subsidy given above is
or the round voyage. For the outward voyage alone, as provided
in our ocean-mail law of 1891, the rate above, of course, should be
doubled. For 12-knot steamers we pay 77 cents under the act of 1891,
so that the lowest Italian rate is more than double the American.
All the Italian fifteen-year mail contracts expired June 80, 1908,
but have been temporarily extended, with notice of final termination
on June 30, 1910, when the whole subject will be reviewed by the
Italian Senate and Chamber of Deputies, with a view to new arrangements
 more in accord with the development of Italy and of shipbuilding
 since 1893. A review on this page of the contracts in force,
accordingly, would be unprofitable. The general navigation bounty
law of Italy also will probably be recast within the next few months.
Italian anchorage taxes, corresponding to American tonnage taxes,
in 1907 amounted on Italian ships to 2,095,011 lire ($404,337); on
foreign ships to 9,570,106 lire ($1,847,080), a sum more than suflicient
to pay navigation and shipbuilding bounties.

SPAIN.

The Spanish Cortes this year enacted a law approved June 17,
1909, which establishes a comprehensive system of mail subsidies and
navigation and shipbuilding bounties. The essential features of the
law are printed in Appendix N. Last year Spain expended 10,282,000
pesetas ($1,984,426), of which 8,445,292 pesetas (peseta=19.3 cents)
were appropriated to the Compafiia Trasatliantica for its lines to
the Philippines and elsewhere. An examination of the details of these
expenditures is unnecessary here, as the new and more comprehensive
project covering ten years is about to go into effect. The project calls
for an annual expenditure of 2,750,000 pesetas ($530,750) for general
navigation bounties, 2,000,000 pesetas ($386,000) for navigation
bounties to mail lines to Brazil, ir. New York, Habana, and
to the Adriatic and Black seas, 9,627,909 pesetas ($1,858,186) for