No. 867.
Mr. Bayard to Mr. Romero.
Washington, March 30, 1888.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 12th instant, whereby, under instructions from your Government, you call attention to the Treasury Department’s decision of August 31,1887 (No. 8368), relative to the importation of some Mexican tobacco from Paso del Norte, at El Paso, Texas, which, you aver, tends to increase the duty now imposed under the tariff act of March 3, 1883, upon leaf tobacco, of which 85 per cent, is of suitable size and fineness for wrappers and of which 100 leaves weigh less than 1 pound, by substituting the leaf as the unit of appraisement instead of the tercio or “hand” of tobacco, as formerly. The result, you say, is that even when the proportion [Page 1293] of the tobacco that is to pay the heavier duty is less than 85 per cent. a part of each tercio or of each ‘hand’ pays that duty” (75 cents a pound), “and another the lesser duty.”
You accordingly suggest that it would be more in accordance with the text of the tariff and with justice to levy the duty upon the mean weight of the tobacco, and not to take the leaf unit as a basis, and invite re-examination of the matter by the Treasury Department.
In reply, I have the honor to state that, having had recent occasion to confer with my colleague, the Secretary of the Treasury, touching representations from another quarter in every respect identical with those you make, he has replied that the ruling of the Department, No. 8368, to which you refer, was prescribed after a very thorough and careful consideration of all the questions involved, and that such ruling is, in his opinion, in accordance with a proper and reasonable construction of the applicable provision of the statute and with the interpretation thereof by the Attorney General, who, in an opinion dated April 23, 1884, advises that “nothing is said in the act as to packages or bales or any other commercial form in which the merchandise is imported,” and that “wholly irrespective of such commercial form, the duty is levied directly upon the article rated by its qualities for certain sort of consumption; i. e., into wrappers.” Such a ruling had the effect to give force to both provisions of the tariff schedule found in paragraphs 246 and 247, in that it requires the assessment of duty at the rate of 75 cents per pound on leaf tobacco, of which 85 per centum is of the requisite size and the necessary fineness of texture to be suitable for wrappers, and of which more than 100 leaves are required to weigh a pound, and a duty of 35 cents per pound where the leaf tobacco does not comply with these conditions.
I need scarcely assure you that the sole purpose of the rulings of the Treasury Department in this regard is to carry out the requirement of the law, and not with any intention or desire to discriminate against or favor any particular importations of leaf tobacco. As you are probably aware, a measure is now pending in Congress for the revision of the existing tariffs, one of the features of which, as reported from the committee in charge, is the equalization of ordinary leaf and wrapper tobacco at uniform rates, irrespective of the use to which the leaf may be put, or of the percentage of the leaf itself available for such use.
Accept, etc.,