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Onions: duty, $1.40 per 100 kilograms; quoted at $63 per cwt., paper. Oysters: duty, $24 per 100 kilograms; quoted at $11 and $12 per box, paper.

Paper: duty, $3.80 per 100 kilograms; quoted, American straw yellow paper at 83 to 83 reales per ream; Belgian, from 8 to 84 reales per ream; Manila, 10 to 101 reales per ream, paper.

Pickles: 16 cents per kilogram; quoted from $5 to $13 per box, according to quality and size of bottles, paper.

Potatoes: duty, $1.40 per 100 kilograms; quoted from $9 to $9.50 per barrel, paper.

Salt: duty, $2.37 per 100 kilograms for fine, and $1.18 for coarse; quoted from $7.50 to $7.75 per 200 pounds.

Coals: duty, 60 cents per 1,000 kilograms; quoted from $6 to $7 per ton gold.

Lumber: duty, $6.40 per 1,000 superficial feet; quoted at $30 per M, gold, for white pine boards, and $30 to $30 per M, gold, for pitch pine lumber.

GEORGE W. ROOSEVELT,

Consul.

Matanzas, January 31, 1881.

UNITED STATES CONSULATE,

PORTO RICO.

TARIFF AND TARIFF REGULATIONS OF PORTO RICO.

REPORT BY COMMERCIAL AGENT HUBBARD. OF MAYAGUEZ.

The entire tariff of import and export duties of this island has been remodeled, the system itself being completely changed, and now duties are paid principally upon weight and measurement instead of ad valorem as formerly.

I therefore add to the usual tables one of comparative duties, which I inclose herewith, marked E, which states

The duties under former tariff.

The duties under present tariff.

The difference between the former and present tariff.

The present duties under Spanish flag.

By this table it will be seen that for a number of articles of ordinary consumption imported from the United States the present tariff is favorable to importers and consumers, but for butter, cheese, grindstones, codfish, herrings, shingles, and leaf tobacco a considerable increase has been imposed, while for pork and crackers, or biscuits, the new duties are enormous, and for manufactured tobacco it is so high that it amounts to a prohibition.

This tariff is much opposed to the interests of this colony. Some articles which could easily have supported their former duties were reduced without reason, while others that are of first importance were almost unaccountably increased. As an instance of this latter, I will name empty coffee bags, which are of absolute necessity for the export of the crops of coffee. These bags are largely imported from England and Germany, where they cost, according to quality, say about 12 cents each. The former duties amounted to not quite 3 cents each, while under the present tariff they have to pay about 15 cents.

In fact, there are so many incongruities in the new tariff that a com mittee has been formed, and is now sitting at St. John's, to investigate and note all complaints and advocate the settlement of this much-vexed question, so that the interests of the Government and the commerce may agree as nearly as possible.

This committee will remain in permanence until the 1st of April next, when their report will be made and sent to the home Government for its decision; meanwhile our local government seems anxious to aid commercial interests in the matter, and all mail matter addressed to the committee from any part of the colony is allowed to be sent free of postage.

Various changes have been made in the system of stamps and stamped paper, to go into effect on the 1st of January next; but this will affect legal matters principally, except in regard to books kept by merchants, on which heavy stamp duties will be enforced on all books commenced after that date. When the system goes into effect, the stamp tax will amount to $100 to $300 yearly on mercantile houses here, according to their importance.

FINES.

It is much to be regretted that the extremely vexatious and costly fines to masters of vessels for faults and errors in their manifests cannot be done away with, but as long as the present system exists, by which the revenue clerk or official who discovers the error or default participates directly in the amount of the fine, they will be continued, and the only way to avoid them is by the exactitude and correctness of the manifests.

Under the new tariff, the duties being calculated principally by weight, the gross weight in kilograms of all goods shipped should be correctly stated, and the merchant or banker having in charge the making up of the manifests should be impressed with the importance of his duty and take particular pains to give an exact statement of the gross weight of every article in Spanish kilograms. I further recommend that any articles on which there is any doubt should be weighed before going into the ship and the exact weights inserted in the manifests.

Two cases of fines have lately come to my knowledge officially which will serve to illustrate this subject: The American schooner Ruth Darling arrived here from Jacksonville on the 31st of October last, with about 160,000 feet of pitch pine lumber; the calculation should have been 2 kilograms per foot of lumber, making 320,000 kilograms; instead, however, of following this rule, which is well known, or ought to be, in every port from which pitch pine lumber is shipped for Porto Rico, the party who made the manifest of the cargo in Jacksonville calculated half a kilogram per foot, making 80,000 kilograms instead of 320,000.

In this case it was probably not the intention of the party in question to defraud the Government, but it appeared so. The vessel was fined $400 Spanish gold, besides having to pay tonnage duty on 320,000 kilograms, and not on 80,000.

The American brig Florence J. Henderson arrived in Aguadilla in November from New York with 5,125 sugar shooks and heads, part for that port and part for this, the manifest for which was made for some 90,000 kilograms less than the actual weight.

The vessel was fined in conformity with the new tariff about $550 in Aguadilla, and would have been subjected to the same fine here, making a total of $1,100 which the master would have had to pay.

In both cases I took the proper steps to intercede with the Govern

ment for the remission of these fines, guaranteeing the honesty and non-intent of fraud of the parties interested, and that the mistakes occurred solely from negligence or ignorance on the part of those who made up the manifests for the masters.

The data were placed in the hands of Consul Conroy at St. John's, and it is owing solely to his zeal and tact that the Government consented to release those vessels from the penalty, the fine on the Ruth Darling having been waived altogether, and that of the Henderson reduced to $50.

GORHAM E. HUBBARD,
Commercial Agent.

UNITED STATES COMMERCIAL AGENCY,

Mayaguez, December 31, 1881.

NEW PROVIDENCE.

TARIFF LAWS OF THE COLONY OF NEW PROVIDENCE.

REPORT BY CONSUL M'LAIN, OF NASSAU.

I have the honor to say that, in compliance with the request contained in your circular dispatch of December 1, 1881, received by the last mail, I have this day forwarded you a printed pamphlet containing, among other matters, the specific information you desired touching the tariff laws and rates of duty as they now exist within this colony.

These items will be found on pages 41 to 49 inclusive, and this is the only shape (aside from the bulky volume of Bahama's Statutes) in which the tariff laws and rates of import and export duties of this colony appear in print, and I trust it may prove satisfactory to the Department. THOMAS J. MCLAIN, JR., Consul.

UNITED STATES CONSULATE,

Nassau, January 2, 1882.

THE TARIFF.

Table of import duties.

Per act 39 Vic., cap. 1. (Continued for three years by 43 Vic., cap.

Alcohol.....

2.)

£ 8. d.

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0 2

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0 9 2 000

Cabbages.

Calves

.per 100..
..each..

0

060

Candles, sperm, wax, and adamantine, or any composition of tallow and other substances

Candles, tallow...

- per 100 pounds..
.do....

0 11
0 6 0

0

- per pound..

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Copper and yellow metals in sheets, copper and composition bolts and nails.

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Fish, dried or salted.

Fish, pickled salmon, mackerel, and shad.

..per 100 pounds..

per bushel..
per barrel..

- per 100 pounds..
...each..

per 100 pounds..

080

030

080

1 0 0

076

003

020

080

0 10 0

026

046

046

...do...

050

..do..

020

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Fish, herrings, alewives, and other kinds not enumerated

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Hulks, and materials of vessels, 20 per cent. ad valorem.

Lard

Lumber

Meat, poultry, and game, fresh on ice..

Meat salted or cured

Molasses...

Mules and asses.

Nails of iron..

Oats and bran

- per barrel..

.do....

.per gallon..
.each..

per pound..
.per M feet..

- per 100 pounds..
.do...
- per gallon..
...each..

per 100 pounds..

- per bushel..

Oils, kerosene, linseed, and other kinds unenumerated, except essential
oils...

Oils, olive, sperm, lard, naphtha, and all other fluids used for burning.do....
Pitch, rosin, and tar

Potatoes, onions, and other vegetables

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0 10 0 060 060

0 0 21 0 10 0 030 003

020 046

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- per 100 pounds..
.do...

0 10 0

- per gallon..

do..

0 39

030

.each..

020

per M..
do....

026

020

050

do...

056

do....

0 10 0

.do....

0 12 6

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.per 100 pounds..

per pound..

Turpentine, spirits of.

Wines of all kinds...

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Articles not enumerated, except such as are comprised in the table of exemptions, 20 per cent. ad valorem.

Provided, always, That articles herein made subject on regular importation to the above ad valorem duty, when not originally shipped with the intention of being brought into this colony, however subsequently they may be imported, and when the requisite information for perfect entry of the same as to the cost or value in the country of production or place at which they were originally shipped cannot be ascertained or obtained, shall, in lieu of such duty, be charged a duty of 25 per centum

on the value at the port of entry, or on the price which they shall realize at auction when sold and delivered for consumption therein, at the option of the importer, agent, or consignee.

II. That all articles specified in the following table of exemptions be imported without the payment of any duties whatsoever.

TABLE OF EXEMPTIONS.

Articles imported or supplied out of a bonded warehouse for the imperial or colonial service. Articles of every description imported or supplied from a bonded warehouse for the use of the governor or officer administering the government.

Bulbs and roots, seeds of all kinds, shrubs, and trees imported for planting, birds, bullion, cocoa-nuts, coin, copper and composition, old, fit only to be remanufactured; cotton, wool, dye-woods and stuffs, and divi-divi; flax, hemp, ice, iron, old, fit only to be remanufactured; lignum-vitæ, mahogany; manure of all kinds; maps, metalline ores, oakum, ova of fish, passengers' baggage, philosophical instruments and apparatus, printed books and pamphlets; provisions and stores of every description imported or supplied from a bonded warehouse for the use of Her Majesty's land and sea forces; raw hides, specimens of natural history, mineralogy, or botany, steam machines or engines, or any parts thereof, of every description and for whatever use intended; iron rails and sleepers, used in the construction of railways and tramways; boilers, mills, and parts of mills intended to be used in the making of sugar or grinding of salt; stills and boilers for the distillation of turpentine or other spirits; staves, heads, and hoops used in the construction of barrels or other packages for the exportation of spirits of turpentine or other spirits; iron screw piles used in the construction of wharves; cotton gins, tortoise shell, tow, turtle, and fresh fish, not preserved in any way; wax, woods, cedar and yellow; coal, sponge, patent steering machines, spars, windlasses and capstans.

Provided always, That if metalline ores, raw hides, dye-woods and stuffs, divi-divi, mahogany, lignum-vitæ, cedar and yellow wood; wax, hemp, flax, iron, cottonwood, or tortoise shell, proposed to be exempt from import duties, shall be brought otherwise than by regular importation into any port or place of this colony and sold at public auction, whether such sale shall take place by order of a court of law or otherwise, there shall be imposed and paid upon the gross amount of such sales, in addition to any other auction duty chargeable on such sale, an auction duty or tax of £5 per centum; and the vendue master or marshal, selling any such goods, shall retain such duty of £5 per centum out of the gross sales of the goods so sold by him, and shall forth with pay the same over to the receiver-general or other proper receiver; and if such vendue master or officer shall neglect to retain such duty, or having retained the said duty shall neglect to pay the same over as aforesaid, every such vendue master or officer shall be personally liable therefor; and the same may be recovered against him by action of debt in any court having jurisdiction to the amount.

III. That the words "provisions and stores," in the second section of this act mentioned as being exempted from the payment of duty, when imported for the use of Her Majesty's land and sea forces, shall not extend or apply to cattle or other live stock imported by any contractor for the supply of fresh meat to Her Majesty's said forces, all which cattle and other live-stock shall be liable to the payment of the duties by this act imposed. And provided also, and be it enacted, That it shall not be lawful for the receiver-general and treasurer, or collectors of revenue, as the case may be, to allow any provisions, spirits or other stores imported or supplied, as aforesaid, for the use of Her Majesty's land or sea forces to be landed or taken out of a bonded warehouse as free of duty, except in the name of the senior officer of the commissariat department, or the quartermaster or other proper garrison or regimental officer, or the purser or proper naval officer, as the case may be.

IV. That if any provision, spirits, or other stores as aforesaid, imported or taken out of bond as for the use of Her Majesty's land or sea forces, shall be afterwards applied to any other use than the one mentioned in the entry, order of delivery, or other document, under the authority of which the same were landed or taken out of bond as free of duty, the officer in whose name the same were so landed or taken out of bond, or in case of his death or removal, the officer succeeding him in the same department, shall be liable for all duties due on the same, or on such part thereof as shall be so otherwise applied as aforesaid, and the said duties shall be recovered and applied in the same and the like manner as other duties imposed by this act are directed to be recovered and applied.

V. That if any provisions, spirits, or other stores so landed, or taken out of bond as aforesaid, shall be clandestinely sold, or otherwise disposed of, other than to the use of Her Majesty's land or sea forces, every person concerned in such clandestine sale or disposal, shall forfeit and pay treble the value of the articles so clandestinely sold or

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