Tonnage duty

“ If the produce is held so high as not to bear the expense of transportation, the merchants who import will be obliged to send off money in payment. In order to remedy these inconveniences in future, it will be necessary to hold out sufficient encouragement for the construction of vessels. Perhaps it may be good policy to allow a moderate tonnage duty at this time, to be increased hereafter. ”

“ Vessels entering otherwise than by sea from a foreign port at which tonnage or lighthouse dues or other equivalent tax or taxes are not imposed on vessels of the United States, are exempt from the tonnage duty of two cents per ton, not to exceed in the aggregate ten cents per ton in any one year. ”

“ Broadly speaking, they fall into two main divisions: the ‘subsidies’, otherwise known as tonnage and poundage; and the ‘customs’. The subsidies were a set of variable duties, granted to the king for life at the beginning of his reign, and consisting of tonnage, or import duty per tun of wine; poundage, a duty per pound sterling value on most other goods exported or imported; and wool duties, levied on exported wool. ”

“ But whether a charge imposed is a charge of wharfage or a duty of tonnage, must be determined by the terms of the ordinance or regulation which imposes it. They are not the same thing; a duty of tonnage is a charge for the privilege of entering, or trading, or lying in, a port or harbor; wharfage is a charge for the use of a wharf. Exorbitant wharfage may have a similar effect as a burden on commerce as a duty of tonnage has ”

“ It appears, in every point of view, highly desirable, that the duty on foreign tonnage should be increased. A duty of ten dollars per ton does not seem greater than what is required for the protection of American vessels. But I cannot form any correct estimate of the probable addition resulting to the revenue from such increase. Much would depend on the suppression of the trade carried on by American vessels with enemies' licenses. ”

“ Now, net tonnage means that part of a vessel's carrying capacity which remains for the accommodation of passengers and freight after all its own requirements have been met, a large allowance having always to be made for such spaces as engine room, crew room, coal bunkers, etc. ”

“ On an average 50,000 tons a week are being torpedoed or mined, and our losses tend to augment rather than diminish. Nor is that all. Not only is our merchant tonnage being whittled down below the minimum needed for our strict requirements, but we are also being hindered from utilizing the transports available. ”

“ A country can, or will, pay only so much for its war fleet. That amount of money means so much aggregate tonnage. How shall that tonnage be allotted? And, especially, how shall the total tonnage invested in armored ships be divided? Will you have a few very big ships, or more numerous medium ships? Where will you strike your mean between numbers and individual size? ”

“ I think it wrong to detain foreigners caught here by the embargo; but in permitting them to take our vessels to return in, we do what is a matter of favor, not of right. Of course we can restrict them to a tonnage proportioned to their numbers. In the transport service I believe the allowance is two tons to every person. ”

“ I have great hopes now for the future of the American merchant marine. We have added 300,000 tons in three months and there is as much more existing American-owned tonnage that probably will take the flag. ”

“ There is considerable competition, which, of course, has the effect of reducing the rate of freight. The lowest apparent tender, however, is not always accepted, as it occasionally happens, that, from peculiarity of construction, a vessel of less registered tonnage will afford greater accommodation, and, consequently, convey a greater number of prisoners than one of larger burden. ”

“ Our tonnage exceeds that of any European nation, except Great Britain and Holland; and if we must have a navy to protect our commerce, it must bear some proportion to the extent of our coast, to the amount of our tonnage, and to the navies of the European nations. ”

“ Registered tonnage is all the enclosed cargo spaces and it is on this tonnage that ships pay all claims, such as wharfage, pilotage, light and canal dues. But when describing the tonnage on her naval fleet, England measures displacement, that is, in terms the cubic feet of water the ship would displace. ”

“ The tonnage required for bulky articles will be generally one third more than their actual weight; but the tonnage of ordnance, shells, shot, &c. will be equal to their weight. If vessels be paid according to the tonnage they carry, the masters will of course stow away as much as the ships will hold; but if, by the voyage, they will be averse to loading their ships too much; a naval officer should therefore always attend to see that the ships are properly stowed. ”

“ We shall, therefore, welcome the advice of business men on points where they can help us. Gradually, as we get more and more control of the situation, higher economy in some respects may be possible, but military and naval requirements must be paramount, rough and ready although their demands often are, and they must be served fully at the cost of all other considerations. I am afraid that I cannot hold out any hope of any immediate reduction in the tonnage required by the Admiralty. ”

“ Displacement tonnage is that which is invariably used in respect of warships, and is the actual weight of water displaced by the vessel whose tonnage is being dealt with. Men-of-War are designed to carry all their weights, including coal, guns, ammunition, stores and water in tanks and in boilers, at a certain draught, and the tonnage attributed to them is the weight of water which at that designed draught they actually displace. ”

“ In this year a little over a million tons, nearly 1,100,000 tons, will be built in this country and 330,000 tons will be acquired abroad, so that this year the tonnage which we shall acquire will be 1,900,000. This is purely mercantile marine. Bear in mind the condition under which the tonnage is built. It is the fourth year of the war. There is a difficulty in labor and great difficulty in material. You require steel for guns and shells for the Navy, because the ship-building program of the Navy has gone up considerably in the course of the present year. ”

“ The provisions relating to tonnage revenue increased the tonnage taxes on all vessels, American and foreign, entering American ports, with a rebate of eighty per cent of the tonnage duties allowed to American ships carrying American boys as apprentices and training them in seamanship or engineering for the merchant service and naval reserve. ”

“ He clearly pointed out that the restrictions respecting tonnage would prevent them from being so perfect as a greater scope would enable him to make them, but that each should, notwithstanding, prove superior to her class at the time in existence ”

“ Now, to show the enormous importance of that load of tonnage, that tonnage that is greater than any other city in the world, I undertake to say, and do say, that there are not 1,000 people, men, women and children, connected directly or indirectly, with moving that traffic between the land and the water in both directions. There is such a thing as doing a very large business without a harbor at all. ”

“ Even the constitution of the armada which is to convey it to its point of disembarkation by no means represents a purely naval problem. Until the sailors know what the composition of the military force in respect to men, animals, vehicles, etc., is to be, they cannot calculate what tonnage will be required, or decide how that tonnage is to be allotted for transporting the troops oversea. ”

“ In burden they varied from thirty or forty to one hundred tons, [Footnote: This was the maximum tonnage for which the Navy Board paid, but when trade was slack larger vessels could be had, and were as a matter of fact frequently employed, at the nominal tonnage rate.] the smaller craft hugging the coast and dropping in from port to port, the larger cruising far beyond shore limits. For deep-sea or trade-route cruising the smaller craft were of little use. No ship of force would bring-to for them. ”

“ It is not difficult to understand that a breakdown of that source of supply would mean starvation and disaster. Our dependence on the coasting vessels is not so apparent. The vital needs served by them are, in part, obscured. We are, perhaps, satisfied that alternative channels exist for passage of the tonnage they transport: road and rail are open for inland carriage. ”

“ On all ships or vessels hereafter built in the United States, belonging wholly, or in part, to subjects of foreign powers, at the rate of thirty cents per ton. On all other ships or vessels, at the rate of fifty cents per ton.
Vessels built in the U.S., in the coasting trade, to pay tonnage but once a year. Sec. 2. Provided always, and be it enacted, That no ship or vessel built within the aforesaid States, and belonging to a citizen or citizens thereof, shall, whilst employed in the coasting trade, or in the fisheries, pay tonnage more than once in any year. ”

“ The biggest devil—after the fever—is the Customs. Why, a tank that cost ninety pounds at home costs three hundred pounds for duty in this benighted hole, unless you can make them see it's a case for a special rate. ”

“ Every article of supply furnished or brought to market, will be paid for at a fair and settled price; but as immediate and constant supplies, especially of provision, forage, fuel and transports, are necessary to all armies, it is well known, that requisitions are unavoidable, and must be enforced. ”

“ The merchants, mariners, and shipbuilders of the United States are, it is true, unsurpassed in far-reaching enterprise, skill, intelligence, and courage by any others in the world. But with the increasing amount of our commercial tonnage in the aggregate and the larger size and improved equipment of the ships now constructed a deficiency in the supply of reliable seamen begins to be very seriously felt. ”

“ The burden in 'tons' represents the net wine-carrying capacity of the ship in Bordeaux casks. The 'tonnage' was an additional allowance equal to one-third of this; the 'ton and tonnage' representing the gross burden (see Oppenheim, Administration, pp. 30, 132, 266) .
[393] The pirate; subsequently a naval officer; author of the Discourse of the Beginnings, Practices, and Suppression of Pirates, and of The Seaman's Dictionary; knighted 1618. MS. 'Manwaring' ”

“ The proportion of men on board a man-of-war was three to every five tons, of gross tonnage; one-third being soldiers, one-seventh of the remainder, gunners; and the rest seamen. In merchantmen the ratio was one man to every five tons of net tonnage, one-twelfth being gunners and the rest seamen. [621] But in practice the strength of a crew depended on the number of men required and the success of the impress authorities. ”

“ But, if I am mistaken in these views, and it should experience any reduction, the increase in our coasting tonnage, resulting from the greater activity of domestic exchanges, will more than compensate the injury. Although our navigation partakes in the general distress of the country, it is less depressed than any other of our great interests. The foreign tonnage has been gradually, though slowly, increasing, since 1818. And our coasting tonnage, since 1816, has increased upwards of one hundred thousand tons. ”

“ Taking one-tenth as representing the one voyage and return in the year of the more distant traffic, and one and a half outward sailings for the other nine tenths of tonnage, we arrive at the approximative fact, that the foreign trade does in reality employ no more (repeated voyages allowed for as before stated) than the aggregate tonnage of 1,258,000, instead of the 1,797,000 gross tonnage as apparent. ”

“ It may be argued that percentages are misleading, that the proportionate foreign rise is much more rapid, because the foreign tonnage starts from so low a figure, and that it was much easier to rise from one ton to two tons than from a million to two million. ”

“ The tonnage for material for necessary construction for the supply of an army of three and perhaps four million men would require a mammoth program of shipbuilding at home, and miles of dock construction in France, with a corresponding large project for additional railways and for storage depots. ”

“ In order to do so, I shall observe that salvage has, in every country and in every code of laws, been considered as a matter of general average: the service is an act done for the common benefit, and to be recompensed by common and proportionate contributions. Vessel and cargo always contribute expressly; freight, in some cases, expressly; in others, really but less obviously, where the salvors receive their proportion of the cargo or its value without paying freight. ”

“ Every vessel employed in that trade was entitled to carry one exempt able-bodied man for each hundred units of her registered tonnage, provided it did not exceed three hundred. The penalty for pressing such men was 10 Pounds for each man taken. ”

“ The transports engaged by the Admiralty were the property of thirty-six owners, mostly Liverpool or London firms; their average size was 6,400 tons gross, ranging from 12,600 to 3,500 tons, the range of speed from nineteen to eleven knots. The proportion of tonnage per man and per horse turns out, over the whole, four tons per man, twelve and a half tons per horse. This estimate is made by calculating the tonnage per man on the infantry ships alone, and allowing for the men at that rate by casting out the tonnage per horse over the transports which conveyed both men and horses. ”

“ We estimate the tonnage of the United States engaged in trade with these places at 1,000,000 tons per annum. With these data we see that there has been effected a saving for each of those tons of 13 cents a day for a period of 15 days, which will give an aggregate of $2,250,000 saved per annum. This is on the outward voyage alone; and the tonnage trading with all other parts of the world is also left out of the calculation. ”