[Inclosure in No. 160.]
Mr. Manning to Mr.
Mariscal.
Legation of the United States,
Mexico, June 17,
1887.
Sir: On receipt of your excellency’s esteemed
note of May 11, relative to the complaint of Messrs. Alexandre &
Sons, I immediately transmitted it to Washington with accompanying
arguments from the department of public works.
I have now the honor to state that I have received a reply thereto from
Mr. Bayard, in which he directs me to inform your excellency that the
explanation of the Mexican Government does not, in his opinion, answer
the complaint expressed in my several notes on this important
subject.
My Government has not desired most-favored-nation treatment of vessels of
the United States in Mexican ports, because no stipulation for such
treatment exists in the treaties between the two countries. Neither has
any objection been made to the grant by the Mexican Government of a
subvention or subsidy to the Spanish line for the special services
agreed to be performed by that company.
You will remember that in my note of May 4 I expressly stated that no
complaint had been made of a grant of a subsidy to the Spanish line, and
it follows, therefore, that the elaborate arguments presented by the
department of public works fail to touch the real ground of
complaint.
What is actually complained of is that the Mexican Government grants a
remission of 2 per cent. of the customs duties to shippers of goods by
the Spanish line. This is not even denied by your excellency’s
Government. It is true that by the terms of the contract the remission
is made conditional upon the total duties on the cargo amounting to a
certain sum, and if they fall below that sum the company is required to
pay the 2 per cent. to the shippers out of its subsidy.
Mr. Bayard directs me to say that this condition is a matter of words
rather than of substance, and that the result is that the Spanish line
receives and retains its subsidy, while the shippers by it obtain a
remission of 2 per cent. on the duties on their merchandise.
As illustrating the mode of operation, I append a copy of a blank form
used at the custom-house at Vera Cruz, to which I particularly call your
excellency’s attention. It is a receipt for a certain amount of money,
representing 2 per cent. of the customs duties on certain goods shipped
by the Spanish line. The shipper signs this receipt, and the
custom-house receives it in payment of the duties to the amount therein
named, which is the 2 per cent. in question.
In all fairness, your excellency must admit that this is not merely a
subsidy to the steamship company, but a bounty to shippers by that line
in the form of the remission of 2 per cent. of the customs duties on
their goods. This appears to be so clear that Mr. Bayard instructs me to
call your excellency’s attention to what he considers an entire
misapprehension of my Government’s real ground of complaint, in the
hope, that the Mexican Government will review a decision that bears so
harshly and un-justly on an American line of steamers.
Permit me to avail myself, etc.,
