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Foreign Tariff Series, and in the Industrial Standards Series. A Foreign Tariff Annual is issued embodying changes in the tariffs and related trade regulations during the preceding year. A catalogue of titles and prices of Bureau publications may be secured upon application. Great numbers of official trade reports and announcements of specific openings to sell American goods abroad reach American traders through mimeographed sheets sent to the daily and trade papers for simultaneous release, through confidential circulars, and through notices to those who have had their names placed on the Bureau's Exporters' Index.

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District and Coöperative Offices. In order to bring its work into more intimate touch with American business, the Bureau has also established district offices in some of the larger commercial centers having foreign-trade interests. These are in a sense miniatures of the office at Washington through which its publications and confidential information are made readily available; they are also headquarters for visiting foreigners and for government representatives on leave from service abroad. Each office is in charge of a manager who aims to mediate the entire service of the Bureau to the locality. His field is not limited to the immediate vicinity of the office, but covers a wide surrounding territory, often including several states. In a still larger number of cities somewhat similar work is done by coöperative offices which are in immediate charge of foreign trade committees of local chambers of commerce or other trade bodies but which are conducted under definite coöperative arrangements with the Bureau.

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Recapitulation in Charts. The organization and functioning of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce are well summed up and visualized in the two official charts reprinted on pages 220 and 221.

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*New Office Opened or Division Created during the Year.

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The China Trade Act, 1922. The China Trade Act was signed by President Harding, September 19, 1922. It aims to place American exporters more nearly on an equality with European and Japanese competitors in the development in China of markets for products of the United States. To this end, it authorizes the formation of District of Columbia corporations for the purpose of engaging in business in China. A majority of the incorporators must be citizens of the United States. The law is administered by the Secretary of Commerce who designates a registrar to be stationed in China to supervise the activities of these China trade companies. The distinct advantages of the law are (1) the prestige of federal incorporation as contrasted with the position of American companies heretofore operating in China under the laws of some one of our forty-eight states, and (2) exemption from income and excess profits tax of special dividends on business done wholly in China and paid to stockholders, American or Chinese, who are resident in China.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Consult references to Chapter XIII.

B. Annual Reports of Secretary of Commerce; List of Publications of Department of Commerce Available for Distribution (issued occasionally by the Department); Commerce Reports; Foreign Tariff Notes (since 1922, Foreign Tariff Annual); Trade Information Series; Tariff Series; and other material obtainable from the Department of Commerce.

D. SAVAY, Principles of Foreign Trade, 423-429; WOLFE, Theory and Practice of International Commerce, 497-500; FORD, Foreign Trade of U.S., pp. 245-255; JOHNSON, Domestic and Foreign Commerce, Vol. II, pp. 255-260; HOLT, Official Service to the American Exporters; Foreign Commerce of U. S., Sen. Doc. 190, 66th Cong., 2d Sess, 1920; Cutler, "American and Foreign Government Trade Encouragement Agencies," Report of Fifth National Foreign Trade Convention, 1918, pp. 67-75; WILLOUGHBY, Reorganization of the Administrative Branch; SNOW, Factors in Trade Building.

E. "Eleven Years of Trade Promotion," Commerce Reports, August 27, 1923, pp. 528-531.

CHAPTER XV

PUBLIC TRADE PROMOTING INSTITUTIONS

III. OTHER FEDERAL DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES

United States Treasury Department. — This department is charged with the management of the national finances and is therefore mainly responsible for the administration of the tariff since duties on imports constitute one of the sources of federal revenue. The part played by the collectors of customs and the local and general appraisers has been related. The Division of Customs is the prime agency through which the Secretary of the Treasury superintends the collection of import duties. Among other things, it is charged with the publication of decisions of the Treasury Department and the Board of General Appraisers, the preparation and promulgation of rules and regulations to govern the official action of customs officers, the ascertainment and establishment of rates of drawback and rebates, the determination of the fact of depreciation or appreciation of foreign currency, the supervision of the work of agents for the prevention and detection of frauds on the revenue and of smuggling of narcotics into the United States; the enforcement of the Prohibition Amendment so far as it relates to the importation and exportation of intoxicating liquor; and the regulation of the landing of passengers from abroad and the examination of their baggage. Concurrently with the Department of Commerce, the Division of Customs exercises jurisdiction over such matters as the entrance and clearance of vessels and the enforcement of the navigation laws.

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