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SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of this date, in which you request my opinion as to whether the Scipio, a foreign-built steamship purchased by the Navy Department for its use in the recent war with Spain, and subsequently sold to and now owned by an American citizen, is entitled to registry under the laws of the United States relative to the registry of vessels. The regulation of commerce and navigation is a subject entirely within the control of Congress, and, except in accordance with such laws as have been passed by Congress upon this subject, no authority exists in the Executive Departments to make or enforce rules or regulations relative to the registry of vessels or kindred matters connected with commerce and navigation. Congress has specifically legislated upon the subject of the registry of vessels. Section 4132 of the Revised Stat

utes describes the vessels that are entitled to be registered in conformity to the directions of the subsequent sections of the same title. That section reads as follows:

"Vessels built within the United States, and belonging wholly to citizens thereof, and vessels which may be captured in war by citizens of the United States, and lawfully condemned as prize, or which may be adjudged to be forfeited for a breach of the laws of the United States, being wholly owned by citizens, and no others, may be registered as directed in this title."

This is a positive and specific direction as to what vessels may be and what may not be registered. Doubtless it would be advantageous to permit vessels of the character of the Scipio to be admitted to the rights of local registry equally with vessels condemned as lawful prize and sold as such under the authority of the Government. But Congress has provided for the registry of vessels of the latter class and has forbidden the registry of vessels of the former class. It is unusual to find in a public statute a provision whose terms are as clear and explicit as are the provisions of section 4132.

The Commissioner of Navigation, in his letter to you of August 10, transmitted with your request, discusses fully and in my judgment correctly the legal considerations connected with a construction of the law. I have to advise you, therefore, that under the facts stated to me the Scipio is not entitled to registry.

Very respectfully,

The SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY.

JOHN W. GRIGGS, Attorney-General.

8. FOREIGN MERCHANT STEAMSHIPS BOUGHT BY THE WAR DEPARTMENT.

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9. FOREIGN MERCHANT STEAMSHIPS BOUGHT BY THE NAVY DEPARTMENT.

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9. FOREIGN MERCHANT STEAMSHIPS BOUGHT BY THE NAVY DEPARTMENT-Cont'd.

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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 eighty-four, 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. "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:

666

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:

"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.

666 "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 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, January 31, 1885; Greytown, Nicaragua, February 26, 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; Grenada, May 2, 1894.
Copenhagen, Denmark, July 19, 1898.

The tonnage tax collected during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1899, amounted to $834,087.81. The collections during the ten previous fiscal years have been:

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2. TONNAGE TAX COLLECTED, AND NATIONALITY OF VESSELS PAYING THE SAME, DURING THE FISCAL YEAR ENDED JUNE 30, 1899.

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2. TONNAGE TAX COLLECTED, AND NATIONALITY OF VESSELS PAYING THE SAME, DURING THE FISCAL YEAR ENDED JUNE 30, 1899-Continued.

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1 The amount actually received in the Treasury as tonnage tax during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1899, was $835,834.74.

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