[Inclosure.]
memorandum.
By section 14 of an act approved June 26, 1884, to remove certain
burdens on the American merchant marine, and encourage the
American foreign carrying trade, and for other purposes,” it is
enacted:
“That, in lieu of the tax on tonnage of 30 cents per ton per
annum heretofore imposed by law, a duty of 3 cents per ton, not
to exceed in the aggregate 15 cents per ton in any one year, is
hereby imposed at each entry on all vessels which shall be
entered in any port of the United States from any foreign port
or place in North America, Central America, the West India
Islands, the Bahama Islands, the Bermuda Islands, or the
Sandwich Islands, or Newfoundland; and a duty of 6 cents per
ton, not to exceed 30 cents per ton per annum, is hereby imposed
at each entry upon all vessels which shall be entered in the
United States from any other foreign ports.”
Article VIII of the treaty concluded between Sweden and Norway
and the United States of America, July 4, 1827, reads as
follows:
“The two high contracting parties engage not to impose upon the
navigation between their respective territories, in the vessels
of either, any tonnage or other duties, of any kind or
denomination, which shall be higher or other than those which
shall be imposed on every other navigation except that which
they have reserved to themselves, respectively, by the sixth
article of the present treaty.”
By virtue of the said article, a higher tonnage-tax than that
imposed by section 14 of the above-cited act of June 26, 1884,
on vessels arriving from ports or places in the countries
therein mentioned, that is to say, 3 cents per ton at each
entry, not to exceed in the aggregate 15 cents per ton in any
one year, can not, after the entering into force of said act, be
imposed upon vessels arriving in any port of the United States
from any port or place in Sweden or Norway.
Washington, June 17, 1885.