[Inclosure 1 in No. 129.]
Mr. Manning to Mr.
Mariscal.
Legation of the United States,
Mexico, May 4,
1887.
Sir: I beg to call your excellency’s attention
again to my notes of December 6 last, and April 19th last passed,
touching the operation of a certain contract which the Mexican
Government has made with the Spanish Transatlantic Steamship Company,
and of the serious detriment occasioned thereby to Messrs. Alexandre
& Sons, the owners of a rival line of steamships plying between
Mexican ports and the United States.
[Page 719]
I have now the honor to transmit information given the Department of
State, at Washington, by Mr. John Alexandre, of the firm last mentioned,
explanatory of the manner in which that contract is executed, and which,
if corroborated, exhibits the transaction in an unfavorable light, so
far as the discriminations against the mercantile marine of the United
States are concerned.
The dispatch from my Government goes on to say that Mr. Alexandre
represents that merchandise imported into Mexico by the Spanish line
referred to practically pays but 98 per centum of the customs duties
exacted from merchandise imported in other bottoms; that under Article
III of the contract 2 per cent. of the regular duties on such
merchandise is paid for the importers by the Spanish line, which, under
Article IX of the contract, is repaid to the line by the custom-house,
provided the total duties on each entire cargo so, imported amount to
50,000 Mexican dollars.
Should the duties on any cargo not aggregate that amount, the 2 per cent.
aforesaid is not refunded, and the line receives only the regular
subsidy of |5,000 for the trip. In fact, however, the duties are largely
in excess of $50,000 on each cargo, and consequently extra trips, in
addition to the regular trips, are obliged to be made by the line in
order to transport the freight tendered. And by another provision of the
contract the refund of 2 per cent. of duties on the merchandise imported
in any one of the extra trips is made in all cases where the total
duties on each cargo amount to 25,000 Mexican dollars.
This arrangement, by which shippers of merchandise by the Spanish line
pay 2 per cent. less customs duties in Mexico than shippers by any other
vessels, is manifestly an unequal and unjust discrimination against all
competitors of the Spanish line in carrying freight from the United
States to Mexico.
The regular subsidy agreed upon in the contract to be paid by the Mexican
Government to the Spanish line is not complained of by the Messrs.
Alexandre.
But the discrimination above described, by which a reduction of 2 per
cent. of the Mexican customs duties is secured to shippers by the
Spanish line, is in many cases largely in excess of the freight charged,
and renders competition in freighting impossible.
If it be deemed politic by the Government of Mexico to induce larger
importations into that country by granting a rebate on duties on all
cargoes whereon the duties levied aggregate more than 50,000 Mexican
dollars, the proposition should be made without discrimination, so that
all vessels could avail themselves of it and announce the privilege to
their proposed shippers in the United States. Under the present
arrangement, however, as described by Mr. Alexandre, the discrimination
against the carrying flag of the United States is obvious.
In this connection it may be important to remember that the treaty of
commerce and navigation of 1831 between the United States and Mexico,
having been terminated through notice given by the Mexican Government on
November 30, 1880, this Government is left free to apply whatever
measures are or may be provided by legislation to countervail the
discrimination complained of.
Such a discrimination, if persisted in, would necessarily be regarded as
at variance with the intimate and mutually beneficial intercourse which
the United States desire to maintain with neighboring communities) and
as a disappointing response to the policy manifested by recent acts of
Congress.
I beg leave to call your excellency’s attention very earnestly to the
appearance which this matter has of ajdiscrimination against the United
States merchant marine, which cannot fail, whenever the truth of Mr.
Alexandre’s statements shall be confirmed, to produce a most unfavorable
impression in my country.
I take occasion, etc,
