[Inclosure in No. 185.]
Mr. Williams to Mr.
Porter.
United
States Consulate-General,
Havana, March 19, 1887.
(Received March 24,)
No. 599.]
Sir: In reply to the Department’s instruction
No. 257, of the 2d instant, inclosing the copy of a letter from Messrs.
James E. Ward & Co., of New York, dated the 23d ultimo, and
requesting me to report whether a shipping and landing fee upon
passengers is charged in Cuba by the insular officers, I beg most
respectfully to refer to my dispatch No. 583, of the 5th instant,
wherein the subject is extensively treated, and which crossed on the way
with the said instruction.
I may add, however, as complementary of my said dispatch, that no fee is
charged by the insular officers on passengers when landing, but when
leaving the island, then a passport, which involves the payment of a
fee, is exacted of them. This was facetiously called a few days ago by
one of the Havana newspapers, “Un derecho de exportacion sobre los
Americanos” (an export duty upon Americans).
All Americans who enter the island and return, taking passage at this
port, are required by the authorities to take from this office an
official request for the visa of their passports, when they have them.
For the information of the Department, I inclose blank form, marked No.
1, of these printed requests.
There have been days during the winter just past when as many as fifty to
sixty of these requests have been issued from this office. When
Americans come here without passports issued by the Department, I then
send another form of request to the authorities, one of which is also
inclosed and numbered 2.
The fee charged by the insular officers for visaing a passport of the
Department, whose holder has not been here over a month, is 30 cents.
Generally holders prefer to pay the clerk of the hotel at which they
stop a fee of $1, in addition to the 30 cents, to attend to the work of
visaing, rather than lose time in waiting attendance upon the insular
officers or running around in the sun to attend to the work themselves.
If the holder of a passport, however, remains here over a month, then he
must pay, instead of 30 cents, $4.05, besides the fee of the hotel
clerk.
Blank number 2 is used when the holder has come here without a passport.
In this case the charge of the officers is $4.05.
As pertaining to and as illustrative of the subject, I beg to accompany
the inclosed letters,*
numbered 1 to 12, from Americans who, in the absence of passports from
the Department, have lately called for assistance upon this office.
[Page 995]
As relevant also to this subject, I may mention that the hotel-keepers of
this city have lately published a communication in the newspapers,
complaining against the passport system as an obstruction to their
business, and as therefore tending to diminish the resources by which
they are enabled to pay their heavy taxes.
In no case where services are rendered by this consulate in the matter of
passports is any charge whatever made.
I have the honor to be, sir, etc.,
Ramon O. Williams,
Consul-General.
