JANUARY 1, 1863. I have the honor to report that there have been no arrivals nor departures of American vessels at this place, nor at Copenhagen, during the last quarter. * It is with regret I have to draw your attention to the great falling off in the arrivals and departures of American shipping at this place during the past year, as compared with 1861. Whilst these arrivals and departures in 1861 amounted to the number of 123 vessels under the national flag, they have only reached in the past year to the small number of 15 vessels. This has to be attributed, not only to the suspension of the cotton trade between the southern ports of the United States and Russia during the past year, but also that the sugar trade from the island of Cuba to Russia, which in former years was almost entirely carried on by vessels under the United States flag, has last year, in consequence of the rebellion of the southern States, entirely been carried on by vessels under neu tral flags, owing to the higher rates of insurance levied by the underwriters on cargoes carried by ships under the national flag. ALTONA.-W. MARSH, Consul. OCTOBER 30, 1862. * A new railroad is announced to be built from New Munster to Neustadt, with a branch to Lubeck. This will be the second railroad built in the province of Holstein. The road is to be under course of construction immediately. ** This new railroad will connect the Baltic and the North seas, distant only about eighty German miles, and will terminate at Altona. This will have a tendency to add new interest to the shipping facilities of this port. The immense amount of grain, beef, pork, cheese, cake, and beans, the product of this duchy, will be mainly shipped by this route to Altona and Hamburg. Besides the natural products of this rich agricultural domain, a large amount of shipments will rise at the terminus of Neustadt, which is a large open bay in the northernmost corner of the Gulf of Lubeck; and Lubeck, also, will become an extensive transhipping port for all that country lying on the Baltic and up the Gulf of Bothnia. There is another road in contemplation from Itzehoe to Tanning, to which government has given its authority. Tanning, or Tanningen, is a town on the northwest part of Holstein, and borders on Schleswig at the head of the river Eider. This river has a depth of water sufficient to admit ships of a thousand tons. From Itzehoe there is already a railroad to Gluckstadt. Therefore, when this road is open, it will connect the Eider and the Elbe, passing through the most fertile and productive province in Europe. ** During this sisted of SWEDEN. STOCKHOLM.-A. W. FRESTADIUS, JR., Consul. DECEMBER 31, 1861. year the trade with the United States was very limited, and con Total exportation from ports within my district to the United States: By one American vessel, bar iron, cwt. 14,876.60, valued at.... Rix dollars. 111,589 50 1,590.37, valued at..... 17,581 00 Total imports from the United States to ports within my district: By two American vessels to Norhoping, cotton, 1,002,110 pounds, By foreign vessels to Maerno, cotton, 866,000 pounds, valued at Rix dollars. 531,400 476,300 10,177 1,017,877 FEBRUARY 11, 1862. On account of the very limited trade with the United States during the year 1861, I have thought proper to comprise my consular returns in one report for the whole year, which I have now the honor to transmit to you. It appears from the same that during the whole year this port was visited by only four American vessels, out of which two arrived here in ballast, having previously discharged their cargoes of cotton at Noerkoping, a port south of Stockholm; and the other two arrived here with goods from England. Only one of these vessels sailed from here to America, with cr. 14,878, 60 or 61911 tons bar iron, valued at RR 111,589 50 rix dollars, or, at 26 cents, $29,571 32. The others sailed partly in ballast, and partly with cargoes to other European ports. Several small ports in Sweden were visited by many American vessels, which all went there in ballast, and were loaded with timber to European ports, which formerly very seldom occurred. The total exportation from ports within my district to the United States, during the year 1861, consists of 686 tons bar iron, valued at $34,230 18, which, compared with the shipment in 1860, shows a decrease of $294,383 62. The total importation from the United States was as follows: By American vessels, cotton, 1,002,110 lbs., or $140, 821 00 126, 219 00 2,696 90 269,736 90 which is $300,055 18 less than in 1860. This highly unsatisfactory result of the trade of 1861 can only be attributed to the political complications existing in the United States. The Swedish cotton factories have been provided with cotton principally from Liverpool and Havre. From the report of the Royal Swedish Board of Commerce for 1860, which has just been published, I beg herewith to give you a short extract, which may be of some interest to you. The value of goods imported to and exported from Sweden during the last ten years is as follows: The following items are well worthy of attention, and show the great progress of consumption in Sweden during the last ten years. Of cotton, was imported in 1851 nearly eight millions of pounds, but was increased in 1860 to more than nineteen million pounds. Of coals, the importation in 1860 exceeds that of 1851 by seven and a half millions cubic feet. In 1851, of coffee, were imported nearly nine million pounds, and in 1860 the ́importation rose to more than fifteen million pounds. The importation of raw sugar was in 1851 nearly twenty-five million pounds, but, in 1860 the consumption rose to more than thirty-five millions pounds. Of tobacco was imported in 1851, 264,000 pounds leaf, and 1,448,000 pounds stems, but amounted in 1860 to 4,040,000 pounds leaf, and 1,630,000 pounds .stems. The exportations consisted chiefly of timber, metals, and grain, and show also a remarkable increase during the last ten years, viz: Since the year 1856 the total importation from the United States amounted to nearly seven millions rix dollars Rm, or about $1,855,000, and in 1857 to RmR 6,500,000, or about $1,722,000. In 1858 the same was reduced to RmR 2,902,000, or $770,000. In 1859 the value was increased to RmR 5,518,000, or $1,462,000, and rose further, in 1860, to RmR 6,482,000, or $1,717,000. During the year 1860 Sweden was visited by fourteen American vessels, with a tonnage of 7,742 tons, of which ten arrived from the United States with cargoes, and four in ballast from other countries, and all sailed from Sweden with full cargoes. The commercial fleet of Sweden engaged in foreign trade numbered, in the year 1860, 3,200 vessels, measuring 154,342 lasts, or 308,684 tons. B. F. TEFFT, Consul. DECEMBER 31, 1862. Since my arrival at this consulate, on November 11, 1862, near the close of navigation, no American vessel has entered or left this port, and I have consequently nothing to report according to the prescribed and customary form. On the 14th of November, however, at least eight invoices of iron were shipped from here to Lubeck, to be reshipped at Hamburg for New York. amounting to the aggregate value of 59,632 rix dollars; and I learn that ship ments are taking this direction, partly because American vessels have seldom come here since the opening of our war, and yet mostly for the purpose of lessening the duties on the leading products of this country, by passing through ports not expected to send these products to our country. * * There have been no changes made in the commercial regulations of the country affecting our trade with Sweden since the date of the annual report of my predecessor; but the diet of the nation is now in session in this city, and if any alterations are made I shall report them promptly to the department. The statistical reports of this government will be published in the spring, and these, when in print, I shall analyze and report upon at once. The iron merchants of this city complain that the existing duties on Swedish iron almost reaches the point of prohibition, especially when shipped direct, and they express the earnest hope that, as America does not, and perhaps cannot, manufacture such iron as the Swedish ores produce, the American government may see fit to lower the duties on Swedish ore, which they think would greatly increase the trade between the two countries, and that without damage to the iron interest of the United States. * GOTTENBURG.-J. P. M. EPPING, Consul. JANUARY 8, 1862. In your favor of the 24th of December, 1861, you informed me that inquiry has been made of your department by the chairman of the commission on compensation and expenditure as to the expediency of any modification of the laws relating to the relief and protection of American seamen abroad, with the view to a reduction of the expenditure for this purpose, and that you should be glad to receive from me "such information on this subject as I may be in possession of, or such suggestions of a practical character as may occur to me from the results of my observations and experience." Although the subject of this inquiry is of such compass that not only the operation of our whole maritime law is embraced therein, but also our whole consular service, so that a whole volume could be written on the same, and can with difficulty be satisfactorily answered in a single communication, I will endeavor to give you such information as I am in possession of, and make such suggestions of a practical character as occur to me from the results of my observations and experience, in as much a condensed form as possible. The means to reduce the expenditure for the relief of American seamen in foreign countries must, in my opinion, be sought for, first, in improving our maritime laws so as to establish better the relative rights and duties of the masters of vessels and their seamen, and secondly, in the improvement of our consular service. Both, I think, can be so improved as not only to fulfil better the ends of justice and the protection of the interests of our commerce, but also could be made self-supporting. Our present laws regulating the shipping and discharging of seamen are at present all but dead letters, for the reason that they are altogether superannuated and impracticble. It is next to impossible to carry them out, and conconsequently they are evaded by masters of vessels, and winked at by our custom-house officers at home and our consuls abroad. Amongst these may be enumerated the law requiring every ship to have two-thirds of American seamen on board; also, the law requiring every captain to pay three months' extra wages for every seaman discharged in a foreign port. And so is the 28th section of the act of August 18, 1856, inoperative, because it imposes no penalty upon the master for neglecting or refusing to perform its requirements, other than the retention of the ship's papers. The law requiring American vessels to have two-thirds of their crew composed of American seamen is evaded by the shipping-masters by providing the captains with a parcel of old protections, and these are carried into the custom-houses, and their names entered upon the shipping articles and crew lists, whereupon the collector grants a clearance to the vessel. The shippingmaster then makes a memorandum upon the shipping articles that such and such of the crew have deserted after clearing, and proceeds to ship the real crew for the vessel; but instead of paying the advance wages to the seamen, he pays only such moneys to the boarding-house keepers from whom he receives the men as may have been agreed upon between the two, and puts any sum he may think best opposite the names of the sailors, and of which sum the sailor seldom receives a farthing. The sailor thus put on board of ships, often against his wish and will, without money and without proper clothing, cannot be expected to work cheerfully, he having to work so without prospect of remuneration, and consequently, from this reason, the cruel treatment of sailors by the officers of ships but too frequently occurs. When the seaman, therefore, gets into a foreign port in such time as he has earned the advanced wages charged against him on the shipping articles, he forthwith leaves the vessel without a cent of money in his pocket, and without proper clothing, and, in consequence, often becomes a charge upon the fund for the relief and protection of American seamen abroad. On the other hand, when the vessel goes to a distant port, and the master gets into debt to the seaman, he, or his officers, often abuses him so much that the poor sailor is but too glad to get a chance to desert the ship and leave his earnings behind. The law requiring masters of vessels to pay over the amount they may owe to the sailor who has deserted, for the benefit of the United States, is also always evaded; the master giving in such accounts as to make it appear that nothing was due to the seaman at the time of his desertion, (see section 25 of the act of August 18, 1856,) and little or nothing has ever been paid into the treasury from this source. Great imposition is constantly also practiced upon ships by boarding-house keepers, and shipping-masters, by furnishing or hiring a parcel of men to the shipmasters as able seamen, and taking extravagant advance wages for the same, and then, when the ship comes out to sea, the master finds that he has not capable men enough to work his ship, a very small portion of the men furnished him being able seamen, and capable of performing the necessary duties. Thus, in a crew of twenty to thirty men, there are seldom more than half sailors, and in many cases less, who are able to steer and reef the ship, or to mend the sails and rigging when necessary. Is it to be wondered at, then, that masters having shipped such crews in ports of the United States, in the informal manner shown above, at extravagant wages, will not try to get rid of them in foreign ports, where they can hire better men for one-half the price? Crews of American vessels are also constantly discharged and paid off in foreign ports by such masters as are too honorable to cheat their seamen out of their just earnings, and then these same masters will go to the consul's office and make a report that the men have deserted, and that nothing was due to them at the time of desertion. The men then will spend their money, sailor-fashion, and by the time the ship has left port some of them will be sick and come upon the consul for relief. Such are the reasons why the expenditure for the relief and protection of American seamen is so great in foreign countries, and so little money is collected to support the seamen relief fund. It is a wonder to me that the expenditure is not much greater than it really is. |