No. 862.
Mr. Bayard to Mr. Romero.
Washington, March 20, 1888.
Sir: Acknowledging receipt of your note of January 26 last, in relation to the collection of the sum of $849 as tonnage dues from the steamer Monserrat at San Diego, California, I have the honor to inform you that a communication has been received from the Secretary of the Treasury, to whom a copy of your note was referred, to the effect that the tonnage tax of $1 a ton imposed on the Monserrat and amounting to the sum above stated, was properly collected under sections 4219 and 4225 of the Revised Statutes of the United States.
An examination of these sections in connection with section 14 of the act of Congress of June 26, 1884, as amended by section 11 of the act of June 19, 1886, to the former of which acts you refer, fails to show that this later legislation repealed the provisions of the Revised Statutes in regard to the imposition of tonnage dues on foreign vessels not specially exempted by law or treaty from the tonnage dues imposed on vessels not of the United States.
It may be observed that section 14 of the act of June 26, 1884, imposes a tonnage tax of 3–15 cents, in lieu of the tax of 30 cents a year theretofore imposed under section 4219 of the Revised Statutes, on vessels coming from the regions described in the act. It then repeals sections 4223 and 4224 of the Revised Statutes, but not section 4225; and repeals only “so much of section 4219 of the Revised Statutes as conflicts with” the new provisions which, in the opinion of the Treasury Department, do not affect the imposition of tonnage dues on vessels not of the United States either under section 4219 or section 4225 of the Revised Statutes.
Accept, etc.