No. 291.
Mr. Davis
to Mr. Hamlin.
Washington, September 4, 1882.
Sir: Mr. James McKay, a citizen of the United States, resident in Monroe County, Florida, and who is extensively engaged in feeding and shipping cattle to Cuban markets, has recently brought to the attention of the Department a practice pursued by the Spanish consul at Key West in regard to shipments from that port to Havana and other Cuban ports which results in annoyance, inconvenience, and serious losses to himself and other American citizens engaged in similar business.
It appears from Mr. McKay’s letter of the 22d of June last to the Department, that the Spanish consul at Key West in pursuance, as that officer alleges, of instructions from his government, exacts and collects from Mr. McKay and other American cattle-shippers forty cents a head on all cattle shipped by them from the State of Florida to Cuba. This is in addition to the ordinary and usual consular fees charged and collected for clearing the vessel, certifying papers, and such other charges as may properly be made by the consul in connection with such shipments. On these same cattle, when landed on the island of Cuba, Mr. McKay and the other shippers situated like him have to pay an import duty of six dollars per head. Of this import duty paid in Cuba, however onerous it may be, they make no complaint, recognizing the right of the Spanish Government to impose and collect within its own territorial jurisdiction such duties as it may deem proper under its own municipal laws, provided it does not transcend the limits of treaty stipulations.
In the letter referred to, Mr. McKay transmits thirteen protests made by him, before a notary public, in relation to as many shipments, giving in each case the name of the vessel, the number of cattle in the cargo, the date of shipment, and the gross amount of head tax charged on each shipment. Thus on the 22d of April, 1882, on the steamship Alabama, from Key West to Havana, four hundred and fifty-one head of cattle upon which he paid to the consul in question one hundred and eighty dollars and forty cents, and so on through all the others, varying only in the number of cattle in each cargo and the gross amount of tax paid. A subsequent letter from McKay of the 19th ultimo incloses ten similar documents. These twenty-three protests represent as many shipments made by him from Key West to Havana between the 22d of April and the 7th of August of the present year, and embracing 10,967 head of cattle upon which Mr. McKay has paid to the Spanish consul at Key West, at 40 cents a head, $4,386.80, and when the six dollars a head paid upon their being landed at Havana ($65,802) is added, it is seen that this one American shipper has been obliged to pay to the Spanish Government the sum of $70,188.80 before he gets his cattle into the Cuban market.
It is not conceivable that the Government of Spain, a country whose history and traditions are so intimately and so justly identified with the growth and progress of the world’s commerce, could intend this charge of forty cents a head as a restriction on the commerce of the United States. The long and unbroken friendship existing between the two countries forbid such an interpretation of the policy of His Catholic Majesty’s Government.
[Page 479]The charge, nevertheless, under whatever supposed right or necessity on the part of Spain it may be imposed, is in effect such a restriction, and is a burden so onerous on American citizens engaged in that rapidly increasing branch of American commerce as must in time have the effect of excluding them from the Spanish colonial markets of Cuba. It is a charge moreover upon whatever ground it may be placed that is in itself anomalous. No other government with which the United States holds commercial relations attempts to make or enforce any similar tax or charge in the ports of the United States, and it is almost superfluous to state that the consular officers of the United States are not authorized to make any similar charges in the ports of Spain or her transatlantic colonies on any goods, the produce of those countries, destined for ports of the United States. The remedy for this evil is with the Spanish Government. It may in its hands be made simple, adequate, and immediate by putting an end to the practice, and in the present case reimbursing to Mr. McKay the amount he has already paid, which, as shown at present, is $4,386.80.
The alternative left to this government in case that of Spain shall fail to give the subject prompt and just consideration, is one that is not contemplated with satisfaction; that is, a similar charge on colonial products of Spain shipped by Spanish subjects from the ports of their own country to the United States. A simple statement of the present status of the commerce between the United States and these colonies is sufficient to show how detrimental such a measure would be to the commercial interests of the colonial subjects of His Catholic Majesty.
In 1880 the imports of the United States were, from Cuba, $65,423,000; all other Spanish colonial ports, $12,214,000. Exports from United States to these same places in that year—Cuba, $11,000,000; to all other colonial ports, $2,000,000. For 1881, exports from Cuba, $63,000,000; from all other Spanish colonial ports, $12,000,000. Exports from the United States to Cuba, $11,000,000.
You will take the earliest opportunity to bring this claim to the attention of the Madrid Government, and in doing so you will take occasion to express to the minister for foreign affairs the very earnest desire felt by the President that the subject shall receive the prompt and just consideration of that government, and you will lose no time in reporting the results of your proceedings to the department in order that these may be early laid before the President.
I am, &c.,
Acting Secretary.