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will be the first which the vessel shall enter. The duty of lading and unlading will be paid at the ports where these operations may take place, proportionably to the quantities of their cargoes they may lade or unlade.

VI. Steam-vessels employed in the conveyance of passengers will pay the aforesaid dues once on each voyage, in the manner which will be specified in the regulation.

VII. The amount of all port dues will be necessarily and exclusively applied to the cleaning, preservation, and other works in the ports; the amount thereof will be every year assigned in the Budget to the Ministry of Commerce.

VIII. In order to meet the cost of works of such ports which urgently require them, the Government is hereby authorized to contract a loan by public auction, on the security of the produce of the aforesaid dues, to the amount which may be considered necessary for the amortization of the capital and payment of the interest thereon.

IX. The Government, at the request of the Boards of Trade, and after having taken the opinion of the Provincial Deputations, is hereby authorized to allow the levying of especial charges at certain ports, as also the contracting of loans on the produce of those charges applicable to the works of the same ports.

X. The regulations contained in the present Decree will begin to be in force from the 1st of February of next year.

XI. The Government will make this Decree known to the Cortes, as well as the loans which may be contracted by virtue of the same.

Done at the Palace this 16th of December, 1851.

(Signed by the Royal hand.)

MARIANO MIGUEL DE REINOSo, Minister of Commerce.

SIR,

(Inclosure 2.)-Lord Howden to the Marquis of Miraflores. Madrid, December 25, 1851. A ROYAL Decree has appeared in the official "Gazette" of this morning, regarding the maritime ports of the Kingdom, which contains among other provisions, a regulation of graduated dues to be paid by national and foreign vessels on entering them.

May I request that your Excellency, after having taken the opinion of those Ministers in whose province the details of this Decree more peculiarly belong as well as the intentions which gave rise to it, will have the goodness to inform me, for the information of my Government, whether I am to consider this Decree as an indirect but virtual settlement of a question regarding reciprocity in navigation which I have had the honour to treat with the Government of Her Catholic Majesty for now nearly 17 months, and which, for

I avail, &c.

the advantage of both countries, I hoped, and will allow myself still to hope, would have had another solution. The Marquis of Miraflores.

HOWDEN.

No. 139.-Lord Howden to Earl Granville.-(Rec. January 16.) MY LORD, Madrid, January 9, 1852.. WITH reference to my despatch of the 4th instant, I herewith inclose a translation of the Royal Decree by which the differential duties on shipping in the ports of Spain has been abolished in the cases of those countries granting reciprocity.

If your Lordship will take the trouble of reading some of my former despatches on this subject you will see that I mooted the question of a similar abolition of differential duties on the cargoes of shipping, and that it was favourably received.

Your Lordship will remark that this extremely desirable object. for the interests of England is alluded to in the accompanying document; and, so far from being rejected, a statement is merely made that more time is required for its consideration.

In the state of economical science in Spain, and with the violent prejudices which exist against all change in such matters, your Lordship will feel that a profitable point has been gained in inducing the Government thus publicly to contemplate, in an official document, the equalization of all discriminating duties.

Earl Granville.

I have, &c.

HOWDEN.

(Inclosure.)-Royal Decree, abolishing Differential Duties on Foreign Shipping, on condition of Reciprocity.

YOUR MAJESTY, (Translation.) Madrid, January 3, 1852. THE Spanish mercantile marine is favoured by the Legislation with differential duties of two kinds, the one by the so-called navigation and port dues, which are levied on vessels according to their tonnage, and the amount of which is destined for the preserving, repairing, and constructing of harbours and lighthouses, the other by an increase of duty on the foreign flag over and above the duty leviable on the merchandize under Spanish flag, whether it be properly an international duty or a Customs duty.

The navigation and port dues, which a very short time ago constituted amongst us numberless burdens of the most diversified kind, and which varied even to the mode of exacting them, whether by the public Treasury or by different corporations, were definitively settled by the Law of the 11th of April, 1849, and by your Majesty's Royal Decree of the 16th of December last. In that law the lighthouse duty was established, the anchorage duty, the duties. on lading and unlading, which have replaced all anterior exactions. * Page 1014.

By this means, in as far as the public administration is concerned, the incalculable advantage has been obtained of avoiding the greater and lesser charges to which the navigation was subject through the want of uniformity in the duties imposed, and an inequality in the prices of the merchandize according to the different markets.

The differential duty of the flag, whatever may be the opinion held relative to the advantages it affords to the mercantile marine of country, is a subject of the greatest importance for the interests it creates, and which are so much the more worthy of consideration, inasmuch as they emanate from the Legislature. The Undersigned, however, cannot help observing that the differential duty ought not to be a so much per cent., calculated according to the quota imposed on the national flag, inasmuch as the basis of one and the other duty is totally and entirely distinct. The one constitutes a most important revenue of the Treasury in its two categories of fiscal duty and protector of our industry; the other ought never to exceed the difference in the amount of the freights, which, as a general rule, come heavier in Spain in proportion as the navigation is longer and the capacity of the vessel occupied by merchandize of equal value greater.

On the other hand, your Majesty's Government finds it laid down as a principle in the Law of the 19th of July, 1849, that this differential duty of the flag ought to exist, and as any variation on that point requires the profoundest consideration, it does not think the moment has arrived for proposing any reform thereon.

The port and navigation dues, however, are quite a different thing. Her Majesty's Government feel perfectly convinced that Spain ought to show herself just towards all those nations her allies who maintain with her commercial and political relations, friendly and hence advantageous, inasmuch as they promote our productive powers in general and our agriculture in particular.

Nor is this innovation, which your Majesty's Government have the honour to propose, one without example. In 1844, your Majesty was pleased to ordain that the French flag should be placed on the same footing as the Spanish flag as regarded the payment of navigation dues levied in the harbours of the Peninsula, reciprocating in this way the favour shown to the Spanish flag. And this is precisely what, in the opinion of the undersigned Minister, is advantageous to the interests of Spain.

The Spanish mercantile marine ought not to suffer any disadvantage by reason of extending the principle of reciprocity; but should it be refused, that marine would see itself progressively excluded by the other countries who adopted the system of reciprocity.

Efficaciously protected by the differential duty of the flag, our navy has always been viewed with especial favour by the Legisla

tion; but we must nevertheless take into consideration that although this is a branch in itself of importance under every aspect, it must not exclusively be attended to. An irrefragable proof of this protection is, that amongst other dispositions at present existing there exists this one, that a Spanish vessel registered according to law cannot enjoy the advantages conceded to the national flag unless the proprietor, the captain, the pilot, the mate, and two-thirds of the crew are Spanish; that the entry of foreign ships under 400 tons is prohibited; that a duty of 120 reals (17. 4s.) per ton is imposed on foreign ships for every ton exceeding the above-mentioned number of tons; that Spanish vessels bringing foreign merchandize from harbours near to the Peninsula be deprived of the benefits of the flag; that an equal amount of fine be imposed on national vessels which are hove down in foreign ports; that which imposes the very light ad valorem duty of 2 per cent. on all timber destined for the masts and construction of vessels; and lastly, that which concedes to the owner of every vessel constructed, armed, and equipped in the kingdom, whose measurement is of or exceeds 400 tons, a premium of 120 reals (17. 4s.) for every ton of measurement, as soon as it has set sail for a colonial port.

It is undeniable that in the majority of nations the mercantile navy progresses in an exact ratio to the productive power in all its branches, and that that navy exists in order to afford an outlet to, and, consequently, in order to increase the value of its products. That navy can alone prosper again amongst those nations who dedicate themselves to the carrying trade, as was the case with Holland in former times. Spain is not in a similar position. Her navy, like that of the generality of the countries of Europe and America, is sufficient for all her mercantile transactions, but there are no nations now-a-days who dedicate themselves exclusively, as in former years, to commerce, monopolizing that of different other nations, on which account their flags were recognized on all seas to the exclusion of all others.

If, then, navigation facilitates commerce and augments production, the coasting traffic ought to be favoured by encouraging the greatest possible number of vessels of all nations, promoting thus the rise in the price of that merchandize which we export principally abroad, and which has to contend with considerable disadvantages by reason of the import duties payable at some of the places whither that merchandize is sent.

Spanish vessels favoured at present by the Legislation are, so to say, the only ones which carry on the commerce of the Peninsula with her ultramarine possessions. It is to be hoped that they may continue to be so by reason of the advantages they enjoy in those countries, from the nature of the merchandize which they

carry, and the profits arising from a commerce between nations professing the same religion, speaking the same language, and depending from the same mother country. This commerce will augment gradually in the same proportion, and as a necessary consequence of the increase of riches and welfare of all classes of our nation. The Spanish mercantile marine will likewise be induced more and more to introduce the raw material which national industry requires from abroad in greater quantities by reason of the increase of our manufactures in many of their branches.

Nations of much greater mercantile importance than Spain, such as England, The United States, France, and others who have much better conditions for their navy than we have, have not been able to exclude the vessels of other nations in their commercial relations they hold with them, and it is undeniable that some of these nations are in proportion inferior to the Spanish, although their flags may wave over a greater number of seas.

The completion of protection would be the removal of all legal trammels, such as the duties imposed on all objects fitted for ship building, cordage, sails, and provisions of crews, as well as other measures which the Government cannot propose without serious consideration, inasmuch as they must conciliate as far as is possible the interests of the generality, without injuring one class in order to favour more exclusively others.

As it is not the wish of your Majesty's Government that reciprocity with one or more nations should be conceded for the sole purpose of conferring a species of privilege in their favour, but that the system should be extended to all who may accept it, Government will have the right to refuse the treatment of the most favoured nation to all but those who have placed themselves in the same circumstances as that nation which has merited the favour as a reciprocity for its own proceedings.

Such is the basis of this proposition to equalize the navigation and port dues on all the vessels of other nations who concede an equal benefit in their respective territories to our vessels. A similar reciprocity is more just than to exact in Spain the same quota which is exacted abroad, for although the latter is higher, it must be confessed that it is but a compensation for the greater expenses incurred in the construction of harbours, moles, and lighthouses, which latter afford greater advantages than we can provide in our country, until the necessary works, to which the Government is directing its whole attention, can offer the good results it so much desires.

Considering then what has been proposed, the Undersigned baving taken the opinion of a mixed Commission, composed of individuals from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Public Works,

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