The Alaska citizen., 1916-12-18
FRENCH PEOPLE
 ARE OPTIMISTIC
 REGARDING VAR

PARIS. Nov Lack of outgoing freight Vas what aiIed the French merchant marine before the war says Maurice Ajam, deputy for thr department Of the Sarthe and former under secretary for the merchan, marine outgoing freight heavy freight-ts the only permanent cure for that ailment; the remedy will be furnished by the issue of the war.
 Five million tons of steel and ron from the Valley Of the Mo sere." he declares to The Associat- ed Press. will be added to our eXpor- tauons. since the least that France will get out of the war will be her old provinces of Alsace and LOT, raine with the iron deposits that Germany took from us in ISL
 The Frenchman is a stay-at-home, - says M. Ajam, and We can't give to our lines the revenue German ships derive from the omigrant trade. We can and will give them products and manufactures in place of live freight At least We can give them a larger proportion of our own cur rent carrying trade that went 10 foreign ships before the war
 The significance of NJ. Ajams ref erence appears from figures showing that France paid 1.0S5,00000o francs to foreign ships and 345,00o,000 to French lines in 1915 The balance of seven hundred and forty million francs has had more weight in the argument for d greater merchant marine than years of propaganda. Both the government and parliament propose immediate action, but they are not vet agreed as to what action.
 Statistics collected by the Moniteur De La Flotte, the leading French maritime journal, show that the part of the French marine i'll the exterior commerce of France had fallen to 30 per cent in 1895 and to 24 per cent in 1913. In the meantime the general freight traffic of the country had gone from fifteen tons in 1880 to 45 million tons in 1913.
 French lines carried more and more freight. but considered in com parions to the development of French foreign trade. its proporuonate share became less and le s. The unusual circumstances developing from the war changed the situation and in eroasing the part of French bottoms to 31 per cent in 1915, but the Moni- teur De La Flotte estimates that, as result of remarkable increases in imports during this year, the share of French ships will have dropped again to about 25 per cent; in other words, foreign ships are bringing to France three-quarters ol all the products and manufactures that it imports. France will have expended for the year 1916, at the present rate, three billion francs for ocean transporta tion, of which two and a half billions will go to foreign bottom, reducing the share of French lines to 20 per cent.
 Nj. Ajam proposes, in a bill just introduced in the chamber of depu- ties, the construction of merchant ships to the aggregate of 500,000 tons burden. He demands that in view of the magnitude of the task of restoring and developing the mer- chant fleet, the first initiative be confided to the government and that the ships be put on. the stocks at once, to be sold subsequently to steamship lines on the most favor able terms possible.
 The merchant marine committee of the chamber proposes loans az grega ting 160 million francs, at six per cent interest, to shipping con- panies acceptable to the minister of marine for the purpose of buying or constructing steamships; of this sum fifty million francs would be reserevd to colonial service and fiji ty millions to French shipbuilders.
 The best information obtainable in dicates that between fifty thousand and sixty thousand tons of merchant ships have been built since the war began, although most of the ship yards are employed manufacturing war material. Merchant vessels bought abroad to fly the French flag at the end of hostilities aggregate 150 thousand tons, while from the German fleet seized in Portuguese ports vessels aggregating 60,O00 tons have been attributed to France. mak-