In 1893 the rate paid to vessels was $2.90 per ton, while the rate paid to the owners of boats and to boat fishermen remained the same as in 1892. In 1894 vessels were paid at the rate of $2.70 per ton. The rate to boats was the same as has been paid since 1889, viz, $1 per boat to the owner thereof, and $3 each to boat fishermen. In 1895 vessels were paid at the rate of $2.60 per ton. Owners of boats received $1 per boat and boat fishermen $3 per man. The total number of vessels to which bounty was paid since 1882 is 11,418, with a tonnage of 423,465 tons, the number of crew receiving bounty being 88,067. Average number of men per vessel is 8. The total number of boats paid is 196,772 and boat fishermen 376,281. Average number of men per boat, 2. 5. The highest bounty paid per head to vessel fishermen was $21.75, in 1893; the lowest 83 cents. The highest bounty paid per head to boat fishermen was $4, the lowest being $2. The general average paid per head is $4.75. Following is the text of the Japanese law for encouraging deep-sea fishing, which went into effect April, 1898. ARTICLE 1. A sum of not more than 150,000 yen ($75,000) annually shall be disbursed by the treasury for the purpose of encouraging deep-sea fishing. ART. 2. Only vessels registered as Japanese vessels and actually owned by Japanese subjects, or by commercial companies of which the members and shareholders are all Japanese subjects, and only vessels engaged in fishing operations in accordance with provisions of imperial ordinance shall be entitled to receive bounties under this law. ART. 3. The vessels entitled to receive bounties according to the preceding article may be either of wood or of iron, and their registered tonnage must be, in the case of steamers, at least 100 tons, and in the case of sailing vessels, at least 60 tons; they must comply with the equipment regulations to be issued by the minister of state for agriculture and commerce, and at least four-fifths of their crews must consist of Japanese subjects. ART. 4. Persons who desire to receive for their vessels a bounty for deep-sea fishing must obtain the preliminary approval of the minister of state for agriculture and commerce. ART. 5. The minister of state for agriculture and commerce may, when he deems that persons applying for bounty under the provisions of the second article are fully qualified, determine the kind of fishing to be engaged in and the places for carrying it on, and may grant a bounty for a period of not more than five years, according to the following scale: (a) Steamers.-Five yen per ton annually: Provided, That when the registered tonnage exceeds 350 tons the rate of bounty shall not be increased accordingly. (b) Sailing vessels.-Five yen per ton annually: Provided, That when the registered tonnage exceeds 200 tons the rate of bounty shall not be increased accordingly. (c) Crew.-Ten yen annually per man: Provided. That this shall not apply to crews exceeding the number fixed by imperial ordinance and younger than 16 years. ART. 6. Should a vessel to which bounty has been granted fail to engage in deepsea fishing for five months or more in a year during the bounty period the bounty shall be withheld for that year. ART. 7. The following vessels shall not be entitled for bounty: (a) Foreign-built vessels older than 5 years at the time of registry after the enforcement of this law. (b) Vessels 15 years old or upwards. ART. 8. The minister of state for agriculture and commerce may cause persons who are in receipt of bounty to make investigations on deep-sea fishing, or place on their vessels students for training in deep-sea fishing. ART. 9. Persons who shall have obtained bounty according to the provisions of article 5, or their successors, shall not be allowed to sell, exchange, donate, or mortgage their vessels during the bounty period or during the period of three years after the conclusion of their deep-sea fishing: Provided, however, That this article shall not apply to vessels on account of which the bounty has been returned, or to vessels rendered unfit for navigation by natural calamity or some other unavoidable cause, or to vessels that have obtained permission of the minister of state for agriculture and commerce. ART. 10. The minister of state for agriculture and commerce may, whenever necessary, disburse a sum of money, not exceeding one-tenth of the amount mentioned in article 1, to defray expenses for inspecting deep-sea fishing operations, or for maintaining students for training in deep-sea fishing. ART. 11. Persons who shall have obtained bounty for deep-sea fishing by fraud, or shall violate the provisions of article 9, shall be liable to imprisonment for a period of from six months to three years, and to a fine of from 100 yen to 500 yen, and shall further be required to return the bounty money received. Persons who shall attempt, but not consummate, the above offenses, shall be dealt with under the provisions of the penal code relating to attempted crimes. ART. 12. The provisions of the criminal code relating to manifold crimes shall not be applicable to offenders against this law. ART. 13. The minister of state for agriculture and commerce may suspend the bounty in the case of persons who shall violate the provisions of this law or any regulations to be issued in accordance with this law. ART. 14. The above punitive provisions shall, in the case of commercial companies, be applicable to such members or managers who are responsible for the business of the companies and who shall have committed the acts prohibited in the foregoing articles. ART. 15. This law shall go into operation from the first day of the fourth month of the thirty-first year of Meiji (April 1, 1898), and shall remain in force for fifteen years. ART. 16. The detailed regulations for the enforcement of this law shall be determined by the minister of state for agriculture and commerce. 4. SEA FISHERIES OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE. According to a report of the French consul at Dusseldorf, the first steam fishing vessel made its appearance in the North Sea in 1885, and for three years was the only one of its kind. But the results of its operations were so satisfactory that in 1887 three others were added to the list, and in 1890 the number of steam fishing vessels in the German fisheries had risen to sixteen. At the present time, thirteen years from the commencement of the industry, Germany possesses 117 steam fishing vessels, manned by 1,185 men, and belonging to shipowners or companies with a total capital of 12,000,000 marks. The majority of them, about 82, belong to the basin of the Weser, viz, 38 to Bremerhaven, 32 to Gestemunde, and 12 to Bremen. The basin of the Elbe has 24, and those of the Elms and Jade some few less. They are constructed of iron, defy bad weather, and continue their operations unceasingly. The trips usually last eight days. One hundred and fifteen of these vessels are furnished with trawl nets about 36 meters long, each capable of holding 150 hundredweight of fish, and which are raised every six or eight hours, according to the results. The takes vary from 100 to 300 hundredweight, and there have been hauls of 400 and even 600 hundredweight. The fish is first cleaned, then salted and packed. Twelve of these vessels have recently been fitted with apparatus for the preparation of cod-liver oil. The German fisheries fleet has, besides, 446 sailing vessels, manned by 2,318 men. The reasons of the rapid development of the German sea fisheries is to be found in the substitution of steamers for sailing vessels and of trawl nets for drift nets. To these may be added the encouragement of all kinds given by the State, not only in reduced freights and increased facilities on the railway, but also in the granting of bounties and in the construction of fishing harbors. To this latter object alone a sum of 13,000,000 marks has been devoted, permitting of the opening of the harbors of Nordeney (1889), Norddeich (1892), Gestemunde (1896), Nordenheim (1897), and Altona, which is not yet completed. The results of this development can not be long in making themselves apparent. While in 1888 the value of fish sold by auction at Altona, Hamburg, and Gestemunde was only £49,429, it reached seven years later the sum of £285,932. At the market of Bremerhaven the sales were valued at £15,492 in 1892 and £36,727 in 1895. At Gestemunde the hauls, which weighed only 5,864 hundredweight in 1888, ran to 274,950 hundredweight in 1895. These figures are not quite representative of the total catch of fish, as there is much sold privately at certain places besides that which is disposed of by auction. APPENDIX G. TONNAGE TAX-COLLECTIONS AND LAW. The following tables show the tonnage taxes collected for the fiscal year. By the act of June 26, 1884, the expense of maintaining the Marine-Hospital Service— which cares for sick and disabled seamen of American and foreign vessels, as well as exercises on behalf of the Federal Government quarantine powers, much increased by the legislation of recent years-is borne out of the receipts of tonnage taxes. The tax is levied on the net tonnage of vessels coming from foreign ports, and is required for five successive entries. For twelve months, dating from the first payment of the tax, all entries of a vessel after the fifth are exempt from tonnage tax. For convenience of general reference, the provisions of the eleventh and twelfth sections of the act of June 19, 1886, regulating tonnage taxes, are again reproduced: "SEC. 11. That section fourteen of 'An act to remove certain burdens on the American merchant marine and encourage the American foreign-carrying trade, and for other purposes,' approved June twenty-sixth, eighteen hundred and eightyfour, be amended so as to read as follows: "SEC. 14. That in lieu of the tax on tonnage of thirty cents per ton per annum imposed prior to July first, eighteen hundred and eighty-four, a duty of three cents per ton, not to exceed in the aggregate fifteen cents per ton in any one year, is hereby imposed at each entry on all vessels which shall be entered in any port of the United States from any foreign port or place in North America, Central America, the West India Islands, the Bahama Islands, the Bermuda Islands, or the coast of South America bordering on the Caribbean Sea, or the Sandwich Islands, or Newfoundland; 666 And a duty of six cents per ton, not to exceed thirty cents per ton per annum, is hereby imposed at each entry upon all vessels which shall be entered in the United States from any other foreign ports, not, however, to include vessels in distress or not engaged in trade: "Provided, That the President of the United States shall suspend the collection of so much of the duty herein imposed on vessels entered from any foreign port as may be in excess of the tonnage and light-house dues or other equivalent tax or taxes imposed in said port on American vessels by the government of the foreign country in which such port is situated, and shall, upon the passage of this act, and from time to time thereafter as often as it may become necessary by reason of changes in the laws of the foreign countries above mentioned, indicate by proclamation the ports to which such suspension shall apply, and the rate or rates of tonnage duty, if any, to be collected under such suspension: 666 Provided further, That such proclamation shall exclude from the benefits of the suspension herein authorized the vessels of any foreign country in whose ports the fees or dues of any kind or nature imposed on vessels of the United States, or the import or export duties on their cargoes, are in excess of the fees, dues, or duties imposed on the vessels of such country or on the cargoes of such vessels. "But this proviso shall not be held to be inconsistent with the special regulation by foreign countries of duties and other charges on their own vessels, and the cargoes thereof, engaged in their coasting trade, or with the existence between such 666 countries and other States of reciprocal stipulations founded on special conditions and equivalents, and thus not within the treatment of American vessels under the most-favored-nation clause in treaties between the United States and such countries. "And sections forty-two hundred and twenty-three and forty-two hundred and twenty-four, and so much of section forty-two hundred and nineteen of the Revised Statutes as conflicts with this section, are hereby repealed.' "SEC. 12. That the President be, and hereby is, directed to cause the governments of foreign countries which, at any of their ports, impose on American vessels a tonnage tax or light-house dues, or other equivalent tax or taxes, or any other fees, charges, or dues, to be informed of the provisions of the preceding section, and invited to cooperate with the Government of the United States in abolishing all light-house dues, tonnage taxes, or other equivalent tax or taxes on, and also all other fees for official services to, the vessels of the respective nations employed in the trade between the ports of such foreign country and the ports of the United States." From time to time, by proclamation of the President, vessels from the following ports, islands, and countries are exempt from tonnage taxes: Aspinwall and Panama, United States of Colombia; island Montserrat, West Indies; Ontario; and San Juan and Mayaguez, Puerto Rico; January 31, 1885; Greytown, Nicaragua, February 26, 1885; island of Trinidad, West Indies, April 7, 1885; Boca del Toro, September 9, 1885. All ports in Europe of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and free ports in Dutch East Indies, April 22, 1887. Guadeloupe, April 16, 1888; island of Tobago, December 2, 1891; Grenada, May 2, 1894. Copenhagen, Denmark, July 19, 1898. The tonnage tax collected during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1898, amounted to $846,771.06. The collections during the ten previous fiscal years have been: 2. Tonnage tax collected and nationality of vessels paying the same during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1898. |