No one can fully appreciate what difficulties custom-houses and tariffs can cause until he has had experience with those in Latin America. The custom-house officials deem it their duty to harass, embarrass, annoy and add to the troubles, worries and expenses of the merchant in these lands. They are veritable boulders in the path of business progress. The charges, fees, tariffs, taxes, and the hundred and one incidental and unwarranted expenses which exist in no other custom-houses in the world save in those of Latin America, change from day to day and are susceptible to as many interpretations as there are government employees having any work to do with the goods under consideration. It would be the height of folly to attempt to give tariffs and other custom-house charges in any Latin American country to-day, for by to-morrow fully half of them would be changed, and let me add that the alteration is always in the form of an additional charge and never a reduction. Tariffs are extreme and exorbitant, subject to the whims and financial needs of those in power and liable to complete variation without warning. Customs officials are recruited always from the class of “politicos” hereinbefore discussed. The positions which they fill are the political plums of the land. These men have not the interest of their country, their countrymen or the merchants within their borders at heart. Their desire is to acquire wealth by exploiting those with whom their official duties bring them in contact, and they have reduced this to a perfect science. The doings of Tammany are in the kindergarten class as compared with these exponents of the theory that to the victor belongs the spoils. The schemes designed and resorted to by these modern inquisitors are almost beyond belief, and could only emanate from the brains of those whose ancestors received their schooling in the days when the “auto da fe” was common and Torquemada reigned supreme. Let me illustrate by a few custom-house rulings taken at random from different Latin American ports.

In a certain Central American country, clinical thermometers are admitted duty free, according to the government tariff schedule. Laboring under this belief a local druggist ordered one hundred. Imagine his surprise when the customs collector charged him the duty assessed on cut glass decanters, classing the thermometers as “etched glass containers.” Their contents—mercury—was classed as an explosive at a prohibitive rate and for “trying to evade the customs” a fine of $500.00 was added, or instead of getting the goods in, without charges, the importer was obliged to pay $642.50 or go to jail.

In a shipment of pickles, because the invoice failed to state whether they were put up in vinegar or mustard, a fine of $100.00 was collected.

On a box of candy weighing five pounds, sent as a present, the nature of the ingredients of each separate piece of candy was not indicated, and a fine of $80.00 imposed and obtained.

The bar of a famous ex-prize-fighter has been for years in a Latin American custom house because the importer never could raise the money to pay the arbitrary fine exacted. Brass pays a high duty according to the schedule of the country to which this bar was shipped, because cartridges can be made from it, although there is not an ammunition factory in the entire land. In the decorations of the wooden pillars at the end of the bar, there were one or two strips of brass about two inches wide. The whole bar was assessed as of this metal and a duty and fine amounting to several thousand dollars imposed, which caused the American who bought it and who had intended to open a cafÉ in one of its cities, to get out of the place on the first ship, leaving the bar as a souvenir.

An iron bed, with four hollow brass balls as ornaments on the end posts met with the same treatment in the same custom-house, paying a duty of $200.00.

Theatrical appliances are free everywhere, especially if the property of a traveling troupe. Despite this fact and a positive statement to this effect in the tariff regulations, I knew one large Latin American country, wherein a carousel, or “flying-horse” outfit, was refused admission unless the owner paid the duty charged on live stock, each wooden horse being assessed at the rate of $25.00, which is the tariff on breeding stallions.

Thefts by minor employees of the custom-house are only too common. As a rule these men are poorly paid and add to their scanty income by appropriating whatever comes within their reach. I have known of cases of soap, provisions, perfumes, shoes and the like to be entirely confiscated in this manner. There is absolutely no redress. Very often the higher employees are implicated in these nefarious practices. In one of the largest and most progressive of Latin American cities, all the foreign and native merchants had been receiving cases short of their invoiced contents. Complaints to the authorities did not remedy matters. Finally the thieves became bolder and the thefts more extensive, many merchants being offered their own goods for sale at prices less than they originally cost abroad. Concerted diplomatic pressure was brought to bear, and an investigation promised. The day before the official hearing, the entire block of custom houses involved was burnt, a strange coincidence being that the four car tracks in front thereof, were occupied with loaded freight cars so that the fire engines could not get near enough to stop the conflagration. All records were thus destroyed and nothing could be done, the loss, involving millions of dollars, falling as usual on the foreign merchant.

Pages could be filled with similar data. All of our consular offices are cognizant of these outrages, yet nothing definite has been attempted to stop them. No matter what precautions the exporter takes, or how closely he follows the shipping instructions, his customer can always be victimized by these scheming officials. European nations suffer equally with us and it would seem that the time is ripe for some united action on the part of the great exporting countries to remedy this growing evil, for that it hurts trade cannot be denied.

Not only are there unwarranted and excessive duties charged on imports but on exports as well, and on these exports we as the largest user of the things produced in Latin America pay the bill. These conditions should be attended to at once, and it should be the business of our State Department to adjust them properly.

On hides, coffee, rubber and sugar, which are the leading exports from these countries, the United States charges no duty, or a merely nominal one. The remarkable feature of this trade is that every Latin American country imposes on all of these articles heavy export charges, which according to their own laws are unconstitutional, and we pay the bills, at the same time allowing them to impose exorbitant duties, outrageous port charges, and illegitimate fines on our exports to them. It may be argued that in the end the cost is finally borne by them, but the fact nevertheless remains that there is much work here to be done by our government to overcome these conditions for the benefit of all parties involved. It is decidedly unfair for a country to collect revenues both ways, namely, on its exports to us and on our exports to it.

The importer is the one who bears the brunt of these burdens. He is continually paying bribes or fines which are of course added to the cost of the goods. Failure on his part to “come across” means delays, loss of goods, higher port charges and incalculable annoyances. One of the great objections to this system of robbery aside from its basic principle of error is that one shipment does not serve as a means for calculating a price on the next one. A new custom-house official (and custom-house officials are changed in these lands as often as a chameleon changes color) may have come into office between shipments requiring a higher standard of fines and bribes to placate. This obviously hurts the sale of any article and makes the merchant hesitate to renew orders. Both importers and exporters have preferred to be harassed, fearing that their failure to comply with these unwarranted and illegal demands would result in the exclusion of their goods from the country, a condition which has often been imposed. Concerted action on the part of all nations to stop this blackmail would meet with the support of the merchants and importers of these lands, and the sooner some step in this direction is taken the better.

Under the condition of affairs now existing, and the long-continued attitude of our government toward all of Latin America, it seems as if there is no hope for our people or merchants and that we must submit uncomplainingly to these iniquities. There can be no doubt but that the existence of such a state of affairs has done much to retard the healthy growth of trade relations between all of these countries and the rest of the world. Latin-American merchants are absolutely powerless to remedy the situation by themselves. Attempts to improve must come from the outside and be presented through diplomatic channels and most emphatically insisted upon. A determined effort on the part of this government would do much to bring about a change and would be a most potent factor in extending our trade relations in these lands.

It may be argued that despite the system of fines, bribes and graft which are so intimately associated with the Latin American custom-houses the lands are prosperous and their merchants thriving, but the fact cannot be disputed that the practice is decidedly wrong and reflects materially on the integrity and dignity of the nation permitting it and positively hampers the legitimate growth of trade.