The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-10-30

eminent, stealing public funds, picking
private pockets. fleecing the lambs call
ed strangers, plucking the geese called
I PROMOTERS these are the occupations of
the Spanish military officials, of the
! Spanish civil authorities and of Span
! ish and Cuban merchants at present.
FLOUR PASSED AS 5CHARCOAL
Corruption is practiced openly, even
! ostentatiously, like the charity of the
hypocritical. If one doubts this ne has
! ony to walk down on the machina, the
custom. house wharf, TO find the proof.
Here he may see, as the correspond
/ ent did the other day, blacks at work
unloading, sacks from the lighters. The
sacks were labeled charcoal, but the
| process of piling them in heaps on the
wharf scattered a fine white dust. This
does not mean that white charcoal has
been invented, for when the CORE
spondent dipped his fingers in the
white dust and tasted it, he tasted
flour. The sacks were consigned to
Spanish importer in ManZanillo-a
thousand sacks of flour marked as
charcoal. The inference was clear that
some one was cheating the government
out of import duties, or that the Gus
tom house officials were permitting the
government to be cheated.
Later. on presenting a letter of in
PRODUCTION to a well-known Cuban
merchant in Havana, the correspond
ent mentioned the flour which had
come in as charcoal. Tut" said the
merchant, that is a mere item. That
man in Manzanillo has been receiving
monthly shipments of that same char
coal for years. The thing is easy. You
see my neighbor across the street. He
cables his buyer in New York to ship
- II
gets the consignment on board ship
and mails to Havana a manifest call
ing for one thousand barrels Of pota-'1
toes. Here the custom house inspector
allows the importers drayS to haul
away the supposed barrels of potatoes,
a cargo upon which there has been
this difference in tariff prices: A fierce
of lard weighs 500 pounds; a barrel Of
potatoes weighs only $50 pounds, and
the duty is only cents a pound. The
duty on the cargo of lard would have
amounted to GOO. but the amount
paid for the cargo of potatoes was only
Sc. 600, a saving of $22, 600 In consid-
GRAFTON of this saving, the customs
house inspector, of course, receives his
reward.
INCREASED PORT DUTIES.
Such is the way business has been |
conducted in Havana for years. Rob |
berry of the government has been so |
systematized that it has become a sci |
ence. With termination of this state |
of affairs in sight, the extent of bribery |
now is almost beyond belief In a stay |
of week or so a man who keeps his /
eyes open can see a score of cases to be !
explained only on the hypothesis of |
bribery of officials. The largest and |
most valuable cargoes dwindle to al |
most nothing under the sSillful
handling of the importers and
the officers of the port. The
cures is causing the participants in
benefits accruing from the present sys-
tenn to neglect no opportunity. 1t is a
case of steal quickly, grab everything
n sight, for soon we will have to cut
md run" Meantime, port duties have
been trebled, obsolete rules have been
revived and new rules created. Impor-
-ers who do not or will not stand in
With the customs house inspectors have
been obliged to suspend business. For
Instance, the port duties on a ton of
Jour valued at $50. amounts to $3.50.
4 case of a dozen cans of beans valued
It so cents, is taxed $780,
These eXorbitant duties have been i'm
POSED with the object of excluding, as
ar as possible, all shipments of food,
he Interior motive being one of which
ne NoIlu dt large Is ignorant, namely,
he disposal of quantities of provisions
n the hands of the military govern
nent. The statement that, during the
var, the Spaniards in Cuba had no
uDplleS was quite erroneous As
natter of fact the Spanish military
government. foreseeing the war. made
immense shipments of food to all parts
f the island, stocking every store and
onsignins goods to all the importers
nd jobbers- And now, with the'end of
IS domination in sight, the Spanish
Military government has still on hand !
bout 25.0JO sacks of -four. 10 600 bar {
els OF beans, 10000 boxes of Norwe- 6
ian Goldfish and 1000 cases of con- I