No. 429.
Mr. Bayard to Mr. Muruaga.

[Personal.]

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,

T. F. BAYARD.
[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.

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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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