The original will be forwarded by the first favorable opportunity.
This report shows how the diplomatic agreement of 1876 came to be set aside,
thus leading to the difficulty in the case of the Lorine.
[Inclosure in No. 138.]
deposit of ships’ papers.
Report of Colombian foreign secretary
for 1878. [Extract.]
In the report from this office, presented last year, an account was given
of the “memorandum” which was transmitted to the honorable members of
the diplomatic corps, dated July 15, 1876, upon the duties with which
the captains of vessels arriving at the free ports of Colombia have to
comply, and of the result established in consequence of the answers
given by said gentlemen.
[Page 316]
The illustrious Señor Ancizar, who was then charged with the department
of the interior and foreign relations, in order to remove the
difficulties created by the law 60 of the 3d of June, 1875, reforming
certain provisions relating to customs, and by those of certain articles
of the Fiscal Code connected therewith, relating to the presentation of
the registers of the vessels arriving at the free ports of Colombia,
indicated to the foreign legations that until the said law 60 should be
repealed there might well be adopted the usual and legal practice of the
United States of America, providing that the register be delivered to
the consul of the nation to which the vessel belongs, or, in his
absence, to the consul of a friendly nation. And he added the
following:
“This officer shall return the register when he is informed that the
vessel is clear of all national dues; that no law or rule has been
violated, and that the captain or the crew have no civil or criminal
proceeding pending against them, being in consequence able to leave the
port. The collectors of customs, the fiscal agents in the free ports,
and the commanders of the harbor guards, when by article 404 of the
Fiscal Code they may be required to cause a compliance with the
provisions relating to the harbor police, will be ordered to give the
aforesaid information to the consul, in order that he may return the
register.”
Several of the collectors of customs made observations, more or less well
founded, upon this resolution, the placing of which, in operation, it
may be said, was accompanied by many irregularities.
Congress did not pass any law in the sense indicated to that body (to
repeal the law 60 of 1875), but the House of Representatives approved in
the last days of the session the following proposition (resolution):
“Let the executive power be reminded to cause a compliance with the
Fiscal Code and the law 60 of 1875, upon the presentation of documents
by the captains or supercargoes of merchant vessels to the respective
national agents or officers.”
On account of this resolution, the secretary of finance communicated to
this department that he would transmit the resolution to the
custom-house and port inspectors in order that the same should be
carried out.
In the condition in which this matter is found, it is therefore urgent to
call the attention of the legislative body of the republic to the same,
in order to determine clearly by means of a law the rules which should
govern in the future the formalities to be observed by the captains of
the vessels which arrive at the ports of Colombia.
The secretary, charged with this department, conceives that this matter
is purely one of the maritime police in our ports, and as such is an
indisputable duty (right) of the government of the republic, whose
jurisdiction cannot be delegated to foreign consuls, and that under this
view Congress should legislate when the revision of the law is brought
before it.
Memorandum A.
The action taken by the Colombian Congress in 1878, in answer to the
urgent request of the secretary of the interior and foreign relations,
was a resolution passed by the senate on the 28th of May, 1878, which
reads as follows:
“Let the executive power be informed that, until Congress repeals or
changes the law 60 of 1875, additional to and reformatory of the law
upon customs, and orders be given as will insure the strictest
compliance with the law, as well as with such legal provisions as may
correspond with the same, by whom it may concern.
