Thefts by minor employees of the custom-house are only too common. As a rule these men are poorly paid and add to their scanty income by appropriating whatever comes within their reach. I have known of cases of soap, provisions, perfumes, shoes and the like to be entirely confiscated in this manner. There is absolutely no redress. Very often the higher employees are implicated in these nefarious practices. In one of the largest and most progressive of Latin American cities, all the foreign and native merchants had been receiving cases short of their invoiced contents. Complaints to the authorities did not remedy matters. Finally the thieves became bolder and the thefts more extensive, many merchants being offered their own goods for sale at prices less than they originally cost abroad. Concerted diplomatic pressure was brought to bear, and an investigation promised. The day before the official hearing, the entire block of custom houses involved was burnt, a strange coincidence being that the four car tracks in front thereof, were occupied with loaded freight cars so that the fire engines could not get near enough to stop the conflagration. All records were thus destroyed and nothing could be done, the loss, involving millions of dollars, falling as usual on the foreign merchant.
Pages could be filled with similar data. All of our consular offices are cognizant of these outrages, yet nothing definite has been attempted to stop them. No matter what precautions the exporter takes, or how closely he follows the shipping instructions, his customer can always be victimized by these scheming officials. European nations suffer equally with us and it would seem that the time is ripe for some united action on the part of the great exporting countries to remedy this growing evil, for that it hurts trade cannot be denied.
Not only are there unwarranted and excessive duties charged on imports but on exports as well, and on these exports we as the largest user of the things produced in Latin America pay the bill. These conditions should be attended to at once, and it should be the business of our State Department to adjust them properly.
On hides, coffee, rubber and sugar, which are the leading exports from these countries, the United States charges no duty, or a merely nominal one. The remarkable feature of this trade is that every Latin American country imposes on all of these articles heavy export charges, which according to their own laws are unconstitutional, and we pay the bills, at the same time allowing them to impose exorbitant duties, outrageous port charges, and illegitimate fines on our exports to them. It may be argued that in the end the cost is finally borne by them, but the fact nevertheless remains that there is much work here to be done by our government to overcome these conditions for the benefit of all parties involved. It is decidedly unfair for a country to collect revenues both ways, namely, on its exports to us and on our exports to it.
The importer is the one who bears the brunt of these burdens. He is continually paying bribes or fines which are of course added to the cost of the goods. Failure on his part to “come across” means delays, loss of goods, higher port charges and incalculable annoyances. One of the great objections to this system of robbery aside from its basic principle of error is that one shipment does not serve as a means for calculating a price on the next one. A new custom-house official (and custom-house officials are changed in these lands as often as a chameleon changes color) may have come into office between shipments requiring a higher standard of fines and bribes to placate. This obviously hurts the sale of any article and makes the merchant hesitate to renew orders. Both importers and exporters have preferred to be harassed, fearing that their failure to comply with these unwarranted and illegal demands would result in the exclusion of their goods from the country, a condition which has often been imposed. Concerted action on the part of all nations to stop this blackmail would meet with the support of the merchants and importers of these lands, and the sooner some step in this direction is taken the better.
Under the condition of affairs now existing, and the long-continued attitude of our government toward all of Latin America, it seems as if there is no hope for our people or merchants and that we must submit uncomplainingly to these iniquities. There can be no doubt but that the existence of such a state of affairs has done much to retard the healthy growth of trade relations between all of these countries and the rest of the world. Latin-American merchants are absolutely powerless to remedy the situation by themselves. Attempts to improve must come from the outside and be presented through diplomatic channels and most emphatically insisted upon. A determined effort on the part of this government would do much to bring about a change and would be a most potent factor in extending our trade relations in these lands.
It may be argued that despite the system of fines, bribes and graft which are so intimately associated with the Latin American custom-houses the lands are prosperous and their merchants thriving, but the fact cannot be disputed that the practice is decidedly wrong and reflects materially on the integrity and dignity of the nation permitting it and positively hampers the legitimate growth of trade.
XXIV
TRADE MARKS
The registration of your trade mark should be attended to as soon as possible if it is your intention to enter the Latin American field with the article which you manufacture. In many of these countries the laxity of the laws governing this important commercial protection work great hardship on legitimately established enterprises. I regret to state that in nearly every one of these lands, it is legally permissible for anyone to register any trade mark on fulfilling certain simple conditions and the payment of a small fee. The result is that a class of men without scruples are continually on the lookout for articles which are being well advertised in this country, knowing the probabilities are that sooner or later there will be a demand for them throughout the world and especially in the place wherein they reside. Magazines and periodicals of all classes are watched with care and as soon as extensive publicity campaigns are launched in the United States or Europe, the chances are that the trade name of the article being exploited will be simultaneously registered by a native in many Latin American Patent Offices. The next step in the technique of these rogues is to wait until some shipment of the goods in question arrives, a fact easily ascertained by noting the shipping news from the States and reading the invoices and the names of consignees, data which is eagerly sought after and published with great detail by all the papers of the port. An injunction is then immediately obtained and the entire shipment is either prohibited from landing or held in the custom house pending wearying and tiresome legal complications, with the result that the quasi owner of the trade-mark in question is always victorious and the shipment either excluded from the country in toto or awarded to the unlawful owner of the brand, in lieu of court costs and legal fees. In the latter event they are then sold, and the money derived therefrom goes of course to the pirates who had the foresight to register the name. These men often wait for years before accomplishing their purpose and with the idea of ultimately making money from their venture have been known to renew repeatedly the trade-mark, when it expired owing to legal limitations.
Of course on attaching a shipment of goods bearing one of these stolen and registered trade-marks, the native owner always offers to sell out his interest in the same, invariably asking a price absurdly excessive, particularly so when one stops to consider that he is asked to pay a sum for the right to use his own name. Knowing that he holds the whip hand in the controversy, and that you must meet his terms and conditions, if you wish to do business in the country, and further that he has you at a decided disadvantage in many ways, the situation which develops is trying in the extreme. Then follows a period of conferences, time-wasting interviews during which much patience must be exhibited until ultimately practically the original sum of money asked must be paid. This has been the general experience of almost every one who has been so unfortunate as to be confronted by such a situation.