Prices of merchandise. Other details ment, including all transits, exports, or import frontier duty, and every other charge up to the arrival at such port, and the ordinary expenses attending the shipment thereof. 660. Consular officers will forward regularly, and as often as practicable, to the general appraisers residing at New York, Boston, and San Francisco, such prices current, manufacturers' statements of prices, or merchants' printed circulars of prices, and such other general information as may be useful to appraisers in the discharge of their duties. 661. Consular officers will include in their several deemed useful. reports, in detail, information on any other points which they may think proper, in order to an ascertainment of the value of merchandise forwarded to the United States, and the assessment of the legal duties, forwarding any printed or other documents which they may think desirable that the Department should possess. 662. Increased interest in the statistics of foreign commerce, evinced by recent and repeated calls by Congress for all such information as may have come into the possession of the Department of State, has caused more than ordinary care in the preparation of instructions upon this point, which it is hoped may not be without adequate response from the consular officers of the government abroad. All information possessing interest, and which is of a public character and proper for publication, is transmitted to Congress annually by the Secretary of State, with the name and residence of the consular officer by whom it is communicated. CHAPTER XXXIII. DUTIES OF CONSULAR OFFICERS IN RESPECT TO AMERICAN OWNERS OF FOREIGN-BUILT VESSELS.1 sels owned by zens. 663. INQUIRY is frequently made of the Depart- Owners of forment of State and of the Treasury, as to what docu- eign-built vesments can be issued, under the laws of the United American citiStates, to foreign-built vessels purchased and wholly owned by citizens of the United States, whether purchased of belligerents or neutrals during a war to which the United States are not a party, or in peace, of foreign owners, the purchase in either case being in entire good faith. tection. 664. Vessels so purchased and owned are entitled Such vessels to the protection of the authorities and flag of the entitled to proUnited States, as the property of American citizens, although no register, enrolment, license, or other marine documents prescribed by the laws of the United States, can be lawfully issued to such vessels. authenticated. 665. To enable, however, the owners of a vessel Bill of sale to so circumstanced to protect their rights, if molested be recorded and or questioned, a consular officer, though forbidden by law to grant any marine document or certificate of ownership, may lawfully make record of the bill of sale in his office, authenticate its validity in form and substance, and deliver to the owner a certificate to that effect; certifying, also, that the owner is a 1 General Regulations of the Treasury Department. Consular certificates. Disabilities vessels. citizen of the United States. Before granting such certificate, the consular officer will require the tonnage of the vessel to be duly ascertained in pursuance of law, and insert the same in the description of the vessel in his certificate. (See Form No. 56.) These facts, thus authenticated, if the transfer was in good faith, entitle the vessel to protection as the lawful property of a citizen of the United States; and the authentication of the bill of sale and of citizenship will be prima facie proof of such good faith. 666. In all cases, therefore, where the evidence of the purchase of a foreign vessel by a citizen of the United States, with proof of citizenship and of the bona fide character of the purchase, shall be furnished to a consular officer, he will, if the proof be satisfactory, and purchase deemed fair, record the bill of sale in his office, and deliver to the party the original, with a certificate endorsed thereon. 667. It is to be distinctly understood, however, of foreign-built that vessels not registered, enrolled, or licensed, under the laws of the United States, wholly owned by citizens thereof, cannot legally import goods, wares, or merchandise from foreign ports, and are subjected in the coasting trade to disabilities and exactions from which documented vessels of the United States are exempted. When subject to forfeiture. When subject to 668. On arrival from a foreign port, such undocumented vessels, if laden with goods, wares, or merchandise, will, with their cargoes, be subjected to forfeiture. If in ballast only, or with passengers without cargo, they will be subject to a tonnage duty of one dollar per ton. 669. In the coast wise trade, such undocumented tonnage duty. vessels, if laden with goods, wares, and merchandise of the growth or manufacture of the United States only, (distilled spirits only excepted,) taken in within one district of the United States to be discharged in another district within the same, or in ballast, will be subjected, at every port of the United States at which they may arrive, to payment of the fees prescribed by law in the case of vessels not belonging to citizens of the United States, and to a tonnage duty of one dollar per ton. But if they have on board any articles of foreign growth or manufacture, or distilled spirits, other than sea stores, such vessels, with their tackle, apparel, furniture, and the lading found on board, will be forfeited. And the master or commander of any such vessel bound from one district in the United States to another district within the same, is required in all cases to comply with the provisions of the twentysecond and twenty-fourth sections of the coasting act of the eighteenth February, seventeen hundred and ninety-three, in regard to reports, manifests, permits, entries, and other requirements therein contained; and on neglect or refusal to comply with any of them, he will incur the penalties therein prescribed. These statute provisions apply to undocumented vessels passing from one collection district to another collection district within the United States; such vessels not being embraced within the provisions of the act of second of March, eighteen hundred and nineteen, and the eleventh section of the act of seventh of May, eighteen hundred and twenty-two, dividing the coast of the United States into certain great districts, for the better regulation of the coasting trade. CHAPTER XXXIV. treaty with Great Britain. INSTRUCTIONS TO CONSULAR OFFICERS IN THE BRITISH Reciprocity 670. UNDER the treaty of reciprocity with Great with Britain, concluded the fifth June, eighteen hundred and fifty-four, the following articles are entitled to free entry into the United States:1 "Animals of all kinds; ashes, comprehending pot and pearl ashes; black salts and salts of ley; bags, barrels, or other original packages, containing flour, wheat, or other free product, provided the article so contained is not usually imported in bulk, and the envelope is appropriate and ordinarily used in the conveyance of such article, but where the character of the package may induce reasonable suspicion of an intent to evade the payment of the duties imposed by law, the collector is authorized to make seizure of the same, and report the facts to the Treasury Department; barley; bark of hemlock or other trees; beams, when rough hewn or sawed only; beans; boards, when rough hewn or sawed only; bran; breadstuffs of all kinds, not further manufactured than flour or meal; broom corn; burr stones, hewn or wrought, or unwrought; butter; Canada balsam, collected from a species of the pine tree, as turpentine; castoreum, a product of the beaver; cattle tails, if undressed; cheese; clapboards, if rough hewn or sawed only; coal; corn, Indian, or maize; cotton wool; dried fruits; dyestuffs; fish of all kinds, products of fish, and of all other creatures living in the water, the exemption from duty to extend to the fisheries of New 1 Decisions of the Treasury Department, No. 63, February 1, 1856. |