No. 172.
General Schenck to Mr. Fish.
London, July 16, 1873. (Received July 30.)
Sir: On Monday, the 14th instant, I had an interview with Earl Granville at the foreign office, and brought to his notice the ruinous influence on the trade to the British settlements on the Gold Coast of Africa, occasioned by the late increase there, without notice, of the duty on rum and tobacco, of which you had given me information in your No. 401. Aided by the papers communicated from the Treasury Department at Washington, of which copies were inclosed in your dispatch, I was enabled to specify and explain the disastrous effect of this measure on the business of Mr. Bartlett, of Boston, and perhaps other regular traders to that coast. I represented the particular hardship to those who had cargoes on the way, and claimed that, apart from any possible question of the legality of the order of council, some redress or relief was justly due to those who were taken by surprise and suffered from the change of tariff made in this unusual way without warning or notice.
Lord Granville asked me if it was the practice in the United States to give notice in such cases. I informed him that it certainly was; that any legislation of Congress providing for a material increase or decrease of duties on imports was either made prospective, as to the time of its taking effect, or accompanied by some condition protecting bona-fide shippers and dealers as far as practicable, or to some reasonable extent, from loss by the alteration of the law. His lordship said he thought that to prevent hurtful speculation during an interval between the passage of a tax law and its going into operation, the opposite course was generally pursued by Great Britain. However, after some discussion of the proper policy and of the grievance complained of in this instance, he made a note of the facts and views I presented, and promised to bring the matter without delay to the attention of the appropriate department of Her Majesty’s government for consideration and their decision.
I have to remark to you, though, that perhaps a new element has ere this entered into the case of Mr. Bartlett and the other parties concerned. The progress of the war waged by the Ashantees against the British settlements on the Gold Coast and the destruction of Elmira and the region of country acquired by Her Majesty’s government from the Dutch may have broken up altogether or otherwise seriously affected the trade in question.
I have, &c.,