league of the department of finance, to the end that orders may be issued for the release of the merchandise without further embarrassment to Mr. Boutros. I take, etc., [Inclosure 2.] H. W. FURNISS. No. 86.] Minister Furniss to the Secretary of Foreign Relations. PORT AU PRINCE, September 26, 1906. SIR: When at your office on the 21st I called your attention to the fact that I had received no reply as to the investigation of your colleague of the department of justice relative to the case of Mr. Backer, as submitted in my No. 80, of August 29, and also that neither had I received reply from your colleague, the secretary of finance, relative to the merchandise of Mr. Boutros, which I considered as being wrongly held, as pointed out in my No. 84, of September 10, 1906, nor had he, up to yesterday, been able to withdraw it from the customhouse. I have further to state that until this date I have received no reply to either communication, and as particularly in the case of Mr. Boutros's goods he is being put to considerable inconvenience and expense, I would thank you to again call these facts to the attention of your honorable colleagues, to the end that these matters may be settled without further delay. Please accept, etc., H. W. FURNISS. [Inclosure 3.-Translation.] The Secretary of Foreign Relations to Minister Furniss. PORT AU PRINCE, September 27, 1906. MR. MINISTER: In reply to your letter No. 86, of yesterday's date, and conformable to my dispatch of September 13 instant, acknowledging receipt of your No. 84 of the 10th of the same month relative to the claim of Mr. Nakhle Boutros, I have the honor to transmit the reply made to me on the subject by my colleague of the department of commerce. My colleague, for reasons deduced below, regrets not being able to comply with your wish to have delivered to Mr. Boutros the goods that he has at present in the custom-house of this port, and for which he says he has already paid the regulation duties. These goods, which arrived after the going into effect of the law of August 21, 1906, are subject to the duties foreseen by that law, and if Mr. Boutros has not been able up to the present to take them from the custom-house it is because he thinks that they are regulated by our preceding customs laws, at present repealed in so far as the duties to be paid. These duties, as you know, should be paid now in gold or in its equivalent value in currency at the rate of 300 per cent. It has come to our knowledge that the greater part of the merchants of this place, and notably the merchants of Syrian origin, learning that the new law was to go into effect as soon as voted, planned, for the purpose of evading its provisions, to have entered in their name on the steamers' manifests stocks of goods which they have declared short shipped, but which were in reality not yet even bought, since the captains would not have been able to take them on board. They hoped in that way to escape the payment of the duties on these goods that the law of August 21, 1906, imposed, by invoking article 56 of the law of September 4, 1905. But this article 56 has not the interpretation that has been given it. It well permits that for a package carried on the manifest and which, through unforeseen circumstances duly proved, the captain may not have had the time to take on board of his vessel, the duties are paid in advance, and not then as a fine. In this case it is necessary for the agent to prove that the package has not been landed, and he takes the engagement to produce it within one month and to prove its identity. But such is not the meaning of article 56, when from a succession of facts it follows that the packages have not been landed, although carried on the manifest, because they were only entered on the manifest for the purpose of invoking the benefit of article 56 of the law of September 4, 1905, in their favor. In fact, it is not one or two packages consigned to the address of Mr. Boutros and entered on the manifest of the steamship Prins Maurits that have been declared short shipped. It is a whole stock of various merchandise, in regards to which Mr. Boutros had no other object in view, from the information that has reached us, than to elude the provisions of the law of August 21, 1906; that is to say, not to pay the duties on these goods in gold. Under such a condition, the duties claimed for the packages entered on the manifest and not landed is a fine against the consignee and remains forfeited to the State. Besides, I beg your excellency to be persuaded that if Mr. Nakhle Boutros found himself in the condition that he says he is in the customs administration of Port au Prince would not have failed to especially please your excellency by taking his claim under consideration. But as I have already said above, from what has come to our knowledge and that which follows, and, moreover, from a succession of facts that your excellency may appreciate through the documents that I send you, Mr. Boutros had only in view, in the circumstance, the evasion of the provisions of the law of August 21, 1906. Therefore I wish to believe that your excellency, appreciating the reasons that I have just submitted to his high spirit of justice and equity, will not hesitate to agree with me that the claim of Mr. Boutros wants entirely foundation, and that under the circumstance Boutros should pay the duties imposed on the goods that he has at present in the custom-house. It is with these sentiments that I beg you, Mr. Minister, to kindly return to me the documents communicated and to accept, etc., [Inclosure 4.] H. PAULEUS SANNON. No. 90.] Minister Furniss to the Secretary of Foreign Relations. PORT AU PRINCE, October 4, 1906. SIR: I am in receipt of your note of the 27th ultimo, inclosing letter from the honorable secretary of finance and various documents submitted by him, on which you comment, and I have to state that after a careful study of the same I find greater reason to insist that the goods of Mr. Nakhle Boutros be delivered without further embarrassment. I fear your excellency is in error when you state that it was notably the merchants of Syrian origin who attempted to rush goods in prior to the promulgation of the law of August 21, 1906, as a careful study of the ship manifests will show, and as was also mentioned at one of our recent interviews. However, I do not wish to discuss the matter on a line of race prejudice, but on the broad principle of right and wrong. On this line I wish to again call your attention to the unfair ruling (shall I say unjust discrimination?) made against an American merchant doing business in Haiti. The facts were pointed out in my No. 84 of September 10, 1906, and to me they are so plain that I can not understand how they admit of discussion. They are these: Mr. Boutros has bills of lading showing that his merchandise was delivered at the wharf of the steamship Prins Maurits and on which his shipper had paid full freight-at least delivery can be implied, since his bills of lading are clean, i. e., without the usual indorsement placed on bills of lading when the party embarking fails to deliver all goods alongside. His Haitian consular invoice is in due form and contains the articles mentioned. The very manifest of the steamship Prins Maurits, which your colleague of the department of finance submits,, shows that when the said manifest was viséed by the Haitian consul, which is usually a short time before sailing or at least when all cargo to be embarked is alongside, the goods must have been alongside, and it was the intention of the captain to embark them, or why did not the captain note either that they had not arrived or that he could not take them, as your colleague of the department of finance so aptly calls to my attention as having been done by the captain of the German steamship Alleghany, which entered here from New York on the same day with the other-mentioned boat. Indeed, the director of the Port au Prince custom-house mentions in his letter No. 140, of September 21, which you inclose, that there was no note on the manifest showing that the merchandise was not on the steamer and gives this to his chief, your colleague of the department of finance, as his excuse for allowing the importers to pay the duty. The facts stated by your colleague of the department of finance that there were cases of soap invoiced and manifested by the steamship Alleghany and which were not delivered to that ship, as per the captain's statement before the Haitian consul at New York, is no reason why soap sent by altogether a different merchant in New York, by a vessel sailing three days later to an altogether different importer in Haiti, must be made to suffer on the supposition that it was a like case, any more so than the fact that one American caught stealing would be reason to imprison all Americans on supposition for the same thing. Again, as to this matter of fraudulent Intent mentioned in both your excellency's letter and that of your colleague, I have to say that as already stated the bills of lading, manifest, etc., give no grounds for such thoughts. I am loath to believe that the firm of Kouri Brothers, of New York, which recently came recommended to this legation by high officials of my Government, would be guilty of fraudulent practices, nor does careful inquiry show that any such accusation has ever been brought up against the firm of Boutros here. I have further to say that this legation regrets that they have been condemned on heresay evidence or supposition. At the same time, with such evidence I could not consent to protracted investigation, with a view to establishing fraud, unless it is your Government's custom to pursue such investigation in all cases where goods manifested to arrive by one steamer arrive by a subsequent one of the same line. This, I know, has never been the practice. The certificate of the local agent of the line that the goods had failed to arrive by the steamer on which they were manifested and the certificate from him when they arrived by a subsequent steamer, has been all the formality required by the Haitian custom-house, and that has been the procedure in this case. Your colleague of the department of finance says that article 56 of the tariff only applies in cases in which one or two packages fail to be delivered. He had doubtless been misinformed as to this, as I have been shown manifests of steamers which have entered here without landing a greater number of packages for one importer and which when they subsequently arrived were delivered without further trouble to the importers who had paid the duties. Indeed, I have been informed by the agents of the only lines of steamers calling here that many has been the time when quantities as large and more valuable than those now in question have been "short shipped," or more properly "short embarked," and subsequently arrived and were drawn from the custom-house under the section of the law above stated. As to the law of August 21, 1906, I am perfectly conversant with all its provisions, and have already discussed them with your excellency. In the law is no mention of sections 56 and 60 of the law of September 4, 1905, having been repealed. In fact, both are still judged by the custom-house to be effective, only that now the duty on the missing cases is payable in gold, or paper at 300 per cent, which was the new law's only provision. The law of August 21, 1906, was promulgated on August 23, 1906, and became effective twenty-four hours afterwards, or virtually after the close of business on August 24, 1906. The duties in question were paid by Mr. Boutros on August 24, 1906, under the old law and prior to the going into effect of the new law. In virtue of these facts I maintain that both legally and morally the customhouse had no further disposition in the matter other than to see that the goods arrived within the limit and to verify them when they arrived to see that they were as had been stated. The duties once paid under the old law, the new law can have no more authority than it could have on merchandise already landed and on the shelf of the merchant. For this reason I must continue to insist that the goods be delivered as per my No. 84 of September 10, 1906. In reference to the decree of the director of the Port au Prince custom-house, said to have been posted on the door of the custom-house on the morning of the 24th, it would be establishing a strange precedent to admit that a part of the old law was in force on the day and another part was not, i. e., that for goods in the custom-house the old duties would be accepted and that sections 56 and 60 of the same law would be ignored. Further, by careful reading nowhere can I find, either in the Haitian constitution or in your laws, that the director of the custom-house is more than an executive officer; neither can I find that he or any other executive officer has any power by decree to set aside any law or part thereof which has been enacted by your Congress, signed and promulgated by your President. As the whole law of September 4, 1905, was legally effective the whole of the business day of August 24, 1906, I would have had to ignore the decree of your custom-house director and to have insisted that he accept the duties from Mr. Boutros in accord with sections 56 and 60 of the law of September 4, 1905, for the goods which did not arrive, had not the director spared me the trouble by his acceptance of the said duties, even though, as he says, by mistake. Further, from your excellency's note I would judge that not only is it the intention of your Government to keep the money already paid by Mr. Boutros as duties under the old law, but to insist on the apparently unlawful forced payment of the new gold duties enacted in the law of August 21, 1906. To this I can assure you that my Government will never consent. In closing I would thank you to call your colleague's attention to the fact that Mr. Boutros's merchandise is rapidly deteriorating in the custom-house; that already it has been necessary to remove the soap some five times because of the rains leaking into the custom-house and running under the door, and an early compliance with my request would be much appreciated. I return herewith the document kindly submitted for my perusal. H. W. FURNISS. No. 115.] Minister Furniss to the Secretary of State. AMERICAN LEGATION, Port au Prince, October 20, 1906. SIR: In further reference to my No. 105 of October 4, 1906, I have to inform the department that I have to-day been notified by Secretary Sannon that orders have been given to release the goods of Mr. Boutros from the custom-house without the payment of further duties. As this is agreeable to my contention, the incident may be considered as closed. I inclose herewith the subsequent correspondence on the subject. I have, etc., H. W. FURNISS. [Inclosure 1.-Translation.] The Secretary of Foreign Relations to Minister Furniss. PORT AU PRINCE, October 19, 1906. MR. MINISTER: Referring to your preceding communications, as well as to the different interviews that we have had relative to the N. Boutros affair, in the course of said interviews you have given me the formal assurance that if a solution from your point of view was given to the Boutros claim you would consider the affair as definitely settled, I have the honor to inform you that the council of the secretaries of state, wishing to again show our desire to maintain, by binding them, the excellent relations that exist between our two countries, has decided, after a most careful examination of the question, to regulate the matter according to your request. My colleague of the department of finance has therefore been authorized to do what is necessary. H. PAULÉUS SANNON. Please accept, etc., [Inclosure 2.] Minister Furniss to the Secretary of Foreign Relations. No. 94.] Please accept, Mr. Secretary, the assurances of my distinguished consideration. H. W. FURNISS, American Minister. No. 46.] The Secretary of State to Minister Furniss. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, October 23, 1906. SIR: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 105, of the 4th instant, in which you state that an American merchant, Mr. Makhlé Boutros, imported a large shipment of merchandise from New York by the steamship Prins Maurits. Of the merchandise listed on the bill of lading, all was delivered except 75 boxes of soap and 8 barrels of tobacco, which you state were evidently left behind on the wharf at New York. Under the Haitian law, Mr. Boutros was compelled to pay the duties on the missing as well as the delivered goods. The missing goods were brought by the next steamer of the line, arriving about two weeks after the first consignment. On attempting to withdraw them, Mr. Boutros was informed that the new gold duties having come into force, he must forfeit the duties already paid and pay the new duties. He appealed to you and you report that while the minister of foreign affairs had admitted the justice of Mr. Boutros's complaint, you deem it necessary to obtain instructions from this department in order to bring about favorable action on the part of the Haitian authorities. The department approves your course. Should it appear as the result of your careful investigation that the goods included in the manifest were accidentally left on the wharf at New York, and that there is an absence of fraud on the part of the claimant, you may continue to use your good offices in his behalf. I am, etc., E. ROOT. No. 122.] Minister Furniss to the Secretary of State. AMERICAN LEGATION, Port au Prince, November 8, 1906. SIR: I am in receipt of department's No. 46 of October 23, 1906, and am pleased to state that the case therein mentioned was settled agreeable to my contentions, as stated in my No. 115 of October 30, 1906. I am, etc., H. W. FURNISS. PROVISION BY LAW FOR PAYMENT OF INTEREST ON HAITIAN BONDS. No. 101.] Minister Furniss to the Secretary of State. AMERICAN LEGATION, Port au Prince, September 26, 1906. SIR: I inclose herewith copy and translation of a law which has this day been promulgated in Le Moniteur, the official paper, and which makes provision for the payment of that part of the interest |