Passports are unnecessary in Latin America.
Funds should be carried in the form of Letters of Credit. It is wise to take one of these in Dollars and Cents and the other in Pounds Sterling, as there will be many opportunities to use one of these advantageously in selling exchange when the other cannot be so employed. This all depends of course on the local demands for foreign exchange, and before buying money, it is wise to ascertain which letter of credit can be used more profitably. The saving which can be made in the course of a long trip in closely watching the price of money and buying when conditions favor you, is worthy of your best attention.
XXIII
CUSTOM-HOUSES AND TARIFFS
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.