[Inclosure in No. 137.]
Mr. Manning to Mr.
Mariscal.
Legation of the United States,
Mexico, May 19,
1887.
Sir: I am instructed to invoke the attention of
the Mexican Government to certain internal abuses which affect
materially and disastrously the trade between Mexico and the United
States. My own Government desires that the trade between the two
countries shall increase to their mutual benefit, and I assume the
Mexican Government entertains the same wish. Everything that hampers
that trade unnecessarily and injudiciously is a hurt to both countries,
and every impediment in the way of commercial intercourse that can be
removed consistently with the fiscal policy of both countries should be
swept away. I do not purpose to make any argument touching the fiscal
system of Mexico as concerns its tendency to affect its exchequer. Each
Government decides for itself what system it will adopt to provide a
revenue for its wants; but my observations will be confined to the
manner in which the subofficers of the Mexican customs act in the
execution of that system, so far as their action affects the business
men of my own country who are trying to establish trade in Mexico.
It seems to be the special object of those customs officers to discover
some trifling and wholly unimportant noncompliance with a set of minute
regulations which they profess to have for their guidance, and their
ingenuity seems to be painfully exercised to detect an omission or
commission that will enable them to obtain the infliction of a penalty
or a fine.
Thus, a New York shipper describes his goods in the invoice as “2 bales
wicks,” and the customs officer incontinently imposed double duty
because the description was not “2 bales cotton wicks,” cotton being the
only material used for wicks. And the same shipper was fined because, in
giving the weight of five tierces of lard as, so many pounds, he did not
specify they were American pounds. This shipment was made by the City of Puebla on February 3, of this year. The
invoice was properly made out, and was certified by the Mexican consul
at New York, who received his fee for it; and the customs officer here
received his perquisite also by inventing an excuse for fining the
consignee. It must be observed that the omission, even if it had been
important, was clearly due to the consul, who must be presumed to have
known what was necessary. Thus it results that one Mexican official
fines an American shipper for the fault of another Mexican official.
Such conduct in an United States custom officer would insure his
dismissal on the instant, because the United States Government would
understand that foreign merchants are disgusted and discouraged by such
business methods, and that the toleration, much less the encouragement
of-them, would drive trade away. Does Mexico want trade driven away? Now
that the commercial nations are looking to her as probably affording a
new outlet for their goods and a theater for the active development of a
widening commerce, does her Government wish to keep in force regulations
that justify her customs officers in such conduct?
I might supplement these instances by others that have come to my
knowledge, but I confine myself to these, because they are the subject
of a formal communication from Messrs. Pomares & Cushman, of New
York, to Mr. Bayard, which the Secretary of State has forwarded to me
with a dispatch instructing me to call the attention of the Mexican
Government to this crying and pressing evil in its administration, and
to request with friendly earnestness that it be eradicated, not less in
the interest of Mexico than in that of the United States. I subjoin the
letter of the complainants.
The broad distinction between this irritating system of microscopic
inquisition for minute and trivial irregularities, and the broader and
generous spirit with which such informalities are treated by advanced
commercial nations lies in this cardinal rule, that the mala or bona fides of the
shipper or consignee is the test for applying or withholding fines and
penalties. If there is manifestly no intent to defraud the revenue, but
only a trivial and unimportant misdescription of the goods, or an
omission to comply with some minute and technical requirement, or the
like, the usage in my country and in others of large commerce is to
treat the matter as unworthy of notice. I regret to say the usage in
Mexico is very different. The customs officer
[Page 728]
seems to be ever on the alert to find something
that furnishes an excuse for a fine, and he pounces on a trivial
informality in the invoice or manifest, which can in no way affect the
revenue, as the customs duties are paid on the goods and not on the
invoiced description of them, with a vehemence and a gusto that would be
ludicrous if the consequence of it were not so serious.
I beg to observe to your excellency that this is one of the most
important matters that I have had to present to your Government. Mexico
wants an increase of trade with foreign nations, and foreign merchants
are intent on discovering new channels of trade. My countrymen
especially desire closer trade relations with yours, but if these
vexatious and irritating practices of the customs officers continue,
trade will inevitably be driven away. Messrs. Pomares & Cushman, you
will perceive, say they have given up all efforts to continue a trade
they had begun because of the hinderances. It is in the interests of my
countrymen that I have laid before your excellency the paramount
necessity of remodeling the rules or usages that prevail in the Mexican
custom-houses, and of reforming the service so that the old ways that
have been long ago discarded by the commercial world, and exist here
only as a remnant of ancient formalism, may be replaced by the simple
and more effective methods in use elsewhere.
I have, etc.,
