No. 429.
Mr. Bayard to Mr. Muruaga.
[Personal.]
Department of State,
Washington, October 23,
1886.
My Dear Mr. Muruaga: The telegrams I have
exchanged to-day with Mr. Curry encourage me to believe that the Spanish
Government will not permit discrimination to be made against vessels of
the United States and their cargoes, whether proceeding from the United
States or from any other point, but will award the same equality to ship
and cargo that the United States wish to bestow upon the Spanish
bottoms.
I have instructed Mr. Curry that with the removal of discriminating
import and tonnage duties upon our vessels and cargoes carried in them
from the United States and from all other points to the Spanish West
Indies, the President will proclaim a suspension of the discriminating
duties under the authority of section 4228 of the Revised Statutes.
I asked Mr. Curry to draw the attention of the Spanish Government to the
comparatively unimportant volume of merchandise shipped from other ports
than of the United States to the Antilles in American bottoms, and the
favor accorded by the shipping act of June 26, 1884—a copy of which I
beg to inclose—to Spanish West Indian commerce.
I would ask you to read the fourteenth section in order that you may
perceive the reduction of tonnage dues on all vessels coming from the
zone in which the Antilles are embraced.
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[Page 838]
I venture to invoke your good aid in giving to your Government
information of this feature in our commercial laws voluntarily enacted
and without equivalent, and wholly in the line of commercial freedom
with the Spanish possessions.
You see that I am very desirous of maintaining as close relations with
the Spanish possessions as the letter and spirit of our statutes will
allow, and shall be glad to see, as the first fruit of early and further
negotiations, fuller and more prosperous commercial intercourse,
beneficial to both of the countries respectively represented by us.
And I am, most truly, yours,
[Public—No.
67.]
AN ACT to remove certain burdens on the American
merchant marine and encourage the American foreign carrying trade
and for other purposes.
* * * * * * *
Sec. 14. That in lieu of the tax on tonnage
of thirty cents per ton per annum heretofore imposed by law, a duty
of three cents per ton, not to exceed in the aggregate fifteen cents
per ton in any one year, is hereby imposed at each entry on all
vessels which shall be entered in any port of the United States from
any foreign port or place in North America, Central America, the
West India Islands, the Bahama Islands, the Bermuda Islands, or the
Sandwich Islands, or Newfoundland; and a duty of six cents per ton,
not to exceed thirty cents per ton per annum, is hereby imposed at
each entry upon all vessels which shall be entered in the United
States from any other foreign ports: Provided, That the President of the United States shall
suspend the collection of so much of the duty herein imposed, on
vessels entered from any port in the Dominion of Canada,
Newfoundland, the Bahama Islands, the Bermuda Islands, the West
India Islands, Mexico and Central America down to and including
Aspin-wall and Panama, as may be in excess of the tonnage and
light-house dues, or other equivalent tax or taxes, imposed on
American vessels by the Government of the foreign country in which
such port is situated and shall upon the passage of this act, and
from time to time thereafter as often as it may become necessary by
reason of changes in the laws of the foreign countries above
mentioned, indicate by proclamation the ports to which such
suspension shall apply, and the rate or rates of tonnage duty if any
to be collected under such suspension. And
provided further, That all vessels which shall have paid
the tonnage tax imposed by section forty-two hundred and nineteen of
the Revised Statutes for the current year, shall not be liable to
the tax herein levied until the expiration of the certificate of
last payment of the said tax. And sections forty-two hundred and
twenty-three and forty-two hundred and twenty-four and so much of
section forty-two hundred and nineteen of the Revised Statutes as
conflicts with this section, are hereby repealed.
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