611B.9417/153
The High Commissioner in the Philippines (Murphy) to the Secretary of War (Dern)4
620. Your 717. Our 611 repeated: Your 709. Please forward to Mr. Sayre, State Department.
Yours December 5th, through War Department, Bureau of Insular Affairs. From contents your radiogram and press dispatches under Washington date line it appears that there is some misunderstanding in respect to the procedure of arrival, clearance, liquidation and report of imports by Philippine customs. It has apparently been assumed that date arrival differs widely from date of clearance from customs custody and that date of liquidation of duties and consequent inclusions in monthly statistical report approximate date of clearance. This is not the case. I am informed that most foreign goods, and [Page 1033] practically all textiles, are cleared from customs custody and enter into trade within 2 or 3 days after arrival under importers or brokers guarantee bond to duly liquidate import duties on demand. Thereafter from a fortnight to 3 months, and in many cases a much longer period, elapses before duties are liquidated. The customs does not include the goods in their monthly report until duties have been fully liquidated. For this reason and bearing in mind that only small quantities of textiles are held in customs custody under bond, dates of arrival and clearance bear a close relation to date of entry into trade and dates of liquidation and report bear little if any relation to date of entry into trade. Further, monthly reports as now based on date of liquidation of duties are of questionable value for control of quota goods. It is the opinion of Doctors Waring, Dorfman, Mr. Richards, my advisers, and local customs officers that for purpose of quota control there should be published an official report of imports by date of arrival or by date of clearance from customs custody.
Your committee working with local customs officers have brought out a very creditable calculation of arrivals of Japanese cotton textiles which shows such imports from August 1st to November 30th at 24,500,000 square meters exclusive of 50 unreported invoices representing goods in customs custody. Customs regular reports based on date of liquidation of dates from August 1st to October 31st show about 26,000,000 square meters. From the foregoing it is apparent that on basis of arrivals and entry into trade the quota has not quite been received, while on basis of date of liquidation of duties the quota was materially exceeded over 1 month ago.
Copies of your radiogram have been received your committee and they filed a long radiogram yesterday before leaving for their southern trip. Doctor Waring further advises that an exhaustive letter report is on way.
- Copy of radiogram transmitted to the Department by the War Department, December 11.↩