Department
of State,
Washington, March 21,
1887.
No. 181.]
[Inclosure in No. 181.]
Mr. Williams to Mr.
Porter.
United
States Consulate-General,
Havana, March 10, 1887.
(Received March 16.)
No. 584.]
Sir: I beg to inclose the translation of an
article that appeared in the Pais of this city on the 7th instant, in
censure of the passport system in this island, and which has been called
out by a complaint lately published against it by the leading
hotel-keepers of this city. I beg to commend it to the attention of the
Department in connection with my dispatch No. 583, of the 5th
instant.
I am, sir, etc.,
Ramon O. Williams,
Consul-General.
[Inclosure to inclosure in No.
181.–Translation from El Pais, of Havana, date March 7,
1887.]
An administrative trap.
There has appeared in our columns a communication addressed to us by
several of the hotel-keepers of this city censuring, with reason, a
measure adopted by the civil government of this province, which, while
it justifies those foreigners who visit the island in saying they have
been deceived by our Government, inflicts a heavy damage upon the hotel
business.
Complying with the call made by the hotel-keepers upon the press, we have
at once to take sides with them in asking for the complete cessation of
the anomaly that has given cause for their complaint, as much because of
its justice as the pain it gives us to see the authorities employ
certain means which, apart from the injury they do, lower them in public
estimation.
The complaint can not be more justified, and it is sufficient only to
take into account the fact upon which it is founded to so acknowledge
it. The civil government of the province announced that transient
foreigners would not need passports to visit this island, and confiding
in this many have come here during the present winter without providing
themselves with that useless document, but upon their returning home it
is exacted from them as an, indispensable requisite before they can take
passage. These foreigners, as is natural, protest against this
deception, alleging that in consequence of the necessity of the passport
to leave the island, they find themselves caught in a rat-trap, and of
course vent themselves in comments against our system
[Page 992]
of government, of which the least that can
he said is the want of sincerity; and they swear they will not he fooled
again by returning to a country where so much mystification is
practiced.
We are well aware there is no other malice in this than the desire to
collect a tax. But does not the Government perceive that it is a
delusion to abolish passports on entering the island and to exact them
upon going out? It has not taken into account the damage caused to
business in driving away so many foreign tourists from our shores, who
spend their money here in the winter season.
