Mr. Gresham to Sir
Julian Pauncefote.
Department of State,
Washington, February 20,
1895.
No. 34.]
Excellency: Referring to your note of the 30th
ultimo, relative to the question as to whether boom sticks and chains
imported into the United States from Canada are subject to duty, and to
the Department’s reply thereto of the 16th instant, I have the honor to
inclose herewith a copy of a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury
from the
[Page 699]
Hon. T. A. E.
Weadock, a Member of Congress from the State of Michigan, in regard to
the assessment of duty by the Canadian Government on boom sticks and
chains imported into Canada for use in towing logs and timber to the
United States.
I have the honor to request that this matter may be brought to the
attention of the Government of Canada, with a view to the establishment
of a reciprocal arrangement in regard to the subject in question between
the two countries.
I have, etc.,
[Inclosure in No. 34.]
Mr. Hamlin to
Mr. Gresham.
Treasury Department,
Office of the
Secretary,
Washington, D.
C., February 16,
1895.
Sir: Respectfully referring to your letter
of the 6th instant, I have the honor to transmit herewith a copy of
a letter from Hon. T. A. E. Weadock, M. C., dated Bay City, Mich.,
the 8th instant, with inclosures in regard to the assessment of duty
by the Canadian Government on boom sticks and chains imported into
Canada for use in towing logs and timber to the United States.
Boom sticks and chains imported into the United States under similar
circumstances are admitted to entry free of duty as stated in the
Department letter to you of the 11th instant, and it is suggested
that the inclosures hereof be brought to the attention of the
British ambassador.
Respectfully, yours,
C. S. Hamlin,
Acting Secretary.
[Subinclosure A.]
Mr. Weadock to
Mr. Hamlin.
Bay
City, Mich., February 8,
1895.
Dear Sir: Referring to our conversation of
several days ago on the subject of an export duty on Canadian logs,
I beg leave to submit the inclosed correspondence.
I am personally acquainted with all these gentlemen, and their
statements may be relied upon. I submit that any duty or toll, in
whatever name levied by the Government, upon logs, or the appliances
for handling them, which are exported from Canada to the United
States, is, as a matter of fact, an export duty. These booms,
consisting of round and unmanufactured timber, fastened by chains,
which are taken off and not entered for consumption in Canada, it
seems to me, are in no proper sense dutiable under the Canadian
tariff act of 1894. The imposition of the duty on booms is simply an
indirect way of collecting an export duty on logs, and I
respectfully submit that the duty upon booms levied as above set
forth is an export duty within the meaning of the Wilson tariff
law.
Yours, truly,
Thomas A. E. Weadock, M. C.
[Subinclosure B.]
B. Boutell to
S. C. Wilson, deputy
collector of customs.
Bay
City, Mich., January 26,
1895.
Dear Sir: We are engaged in the business of
towing and rafting logs from the Georgian Bay country to the United
States, and, being so engaged, use for that purpose large steam
tugs, tow lines, and boom sticks, with which said boom sticks the
[Page 700]
logs towed from Canada
are surrounded. In October of last year we were notified by the
Canadian Government that duty must be paid before the booms would be
allowed to be used in Canada, and that all booms used would be taken
possession of by the Canadian Government, and unless the duty was
paid the same would be sold; and we attach hereto a letter received
from Thomas Flesher, esq., under date of October 15, 1894, informing
us what his orders were as a customs official from the Canadian
Government. We desire also to say that on or about the 6th day of
October we received from the same Mr. Flesher, subcollector of
customs, a letter in the words following, viz:
“To B. Boutell, Esq., Bay City, Mich.:
“Please, sir, I am requested by department of customs, Canada, to
collect duty at 20 per cent if chain is five-sixteenths or over, and
27½ per cent ad valorem if under five-sixteenths, on all booms and
chains of American manufacture now here (or in Canadian waters)
liable to above rate of duty. I find you have 950 sticks, or more
than five sets, here at this port now; and resection 15 of customs
act and tariff item 319, you please according to law pay the duty on
same, and arrange for duty to be paid on any or all booms and chains
which may arrive hereafter belonging to you. (See section 14 of the
tariff act.)
“Yours, respectfully,
“Thos. Flesher, Subcollector.”
That thereafter, and on or about the 6th day of November, 1894, the
Canadian customs officials did levy upon 950 boom sticks, being more
than five sets, and containing about 1,500,000 feet, and took steps
to advertise the same for sale, when the matter was brought to the
attention of the Canadian Government at Ottawa, and, upon request,
the sale of said booms was postponed until we might have a hearing
before the privy council of Canada.
Now, it is our judgment that, inasmuch as it is absolutely necessary
to use booms for the purpose of towing logs from Canada to the
United States, that to impose this duty is, in effect, an imposition
of an export duty on logs, and we respectfully request a ruling upon
this subject. The letter which is submitted herewith you will oblige
us by returning when convenient, after the question involved has
been properly determined. We understand that the Michigan Log Towing
Company, a corporation engaged in the same business in which we are
engaged, has been treated in a similar manner; and we earnestly
solicit an early determination of the question on account of its
great importance.
Respectfully, yours,
[Subinclosure C.]
Subcollector of
Customs to Saginaw Salt and Lumber
Company.
Customs, Canada [, undated].
[Notice, etc., dutiable goods.]
Dear Sirs: I am instructed to collect duty
on all American booms and chains in my port, and on any arriving
hereafter, at 20 per cent ad valorem, if chains are five-sixteenths
and over, and 27½ per cent if under five-sixteenths. I find Reliance, on 22d September, 1894, brought 300
M. L. T. your booms, on which you will please instruct your agent to
enter and pay duty forthwith, and oblige,
Yours, respectfully,
Thos. Flesher,
Subcollector of Customs.
[Subinclosure D.]
Mr. Wilson to
Mr. Boutell.
Custom-House, Deputy Collector’s Office,
Bay City, Mich., January 31, 1895.
B. Boutell, Bay City, Mich.
Sir: Inclosed find ruling on the boom-stick
question, from the main office of this district, with which opinion
I fully concur; and it seems to me that no other construction can
possibly be put upon it. It appears to me that it requires a
considerable stretch of imagination to make manufactured timber out
of a saw log by merely boring a hole through the end of it. It is
certainly a saw log still, and can be converted into lumber.
Respectfully,
Soloman C. Wilson,
Deputy Collector.
[Page 701]
[Subinclosure E.]
W. Springer to
S. C. Wilson, deputy
collector, Bay City, Mich.
Office of the Collector of Customs,
Port Huron, Mich., January 30, 1895.
Sir: Referring to your letter inclosing
letter and other papers from B. Boutell (returned herewith), I have
to say that boom sticks are classified by this office as “logs and
round unmanufactured timber not specially enumerated or provided for
in this act, paragraph 672,” and consequently are admitted the same
as other logs, free of duty when imported into the United States.
There is nothing in the tariff law which would authorize us to
assess duty on such importations.
Respectfully,
W. Springer,
Special Deputy Collector.
