No. 283.
Mr. Bayard
to Mr. Thompson.
Washington, February 12, 1886.
Sir: I have received your No. 67, D. S., of the 12th ultimo, transmitting your correspondence with the foreign office on the commercial restrictions which formed the subject of my instruction No. 6 of the 23d of June last.
In your future communications with the minister of foreign affairs you should emphatically disabuse him of the error into which he has apparently fallen, that your representations to him were only unofficial and private advice for the advantage of the commercial prosperity of the Haytian Republic. It should be your endeavor to make him understand that you are instructed by your Government to call these matters to his urgent attention as unjust hardships inflicted on American commerce, some of which, it is believed, might be remedied without the delay incident to discussions and action in the legislature of Hayti. For instance, there would seem to be no reason why some other security could not be devised by the treasury for the payment of tonnage and other dues than [Page 536] the actual detention of the vessel in port until such dues are paid—a course which, it is believed, is not resorted to by other nations.
There also cannot surely be any necessity for long deliberation as to whether the water, for which vessels pay a tax of $10, should not be rendered accessible to vessels by means of a pipe from the fountain to the custom-house, as was the case when the tax was originally established, instead of ships being obliged, as at present, to send some three miles in boats for water, or purchase it of water merchants, in addition to paying the fountain tax.
It is of little or no use to suggest any policy of reciprocity, as long as there is no merchant marine belonging to Hayti frequenting our ports. The whole matter is one of justice towards foreign nations in general, and our own more especially, as having the largest share of the trade with Hayti, which it is hoped will be equitably settled without unnecessary delay or any possible loss to the interests of Hayti. Your report on the question is still awaited, and you are requested to procure and transmit to the Department a copy of the Haytian tariff and general regulations of the custom-house for its better information in this class of cases.
I am, &c.,