The same course shall be followed with respect to any article the produce or manufacture of those Principalities, as well as with respect to any article the produce or manufacture of any other portion of the Ottoman Empire, intended for exportation; such articles will be liable to the payment of Customs duties-the former to the Custom-House of the aforesaid Principalities, and the latter to the Ottoman Custom-House; the object being that neither import or export duties shall in any case be payable more than once. VII. The subjects and citizens of the Contracting Parties shall enjoy, in the dominions and possessions of the other, equality of treatment with native subjects or citizens in regard to warehousing, and also in regard to bounties, facilities, and drawbacks. VIII. All articles which are, or may be, legally importable into the United States of America, in vessels of The United States, may likewise be imported in Ottoman vessels without being liable to any other or higher duties or charges, of whatever denomination, than if such articles were imported in vessels of The United States; and, reciprocally, all articles which are or may be legally importable into the dominions and possessions of His Imperial Majesty the Sultan in Ottoman vessels, may likewise be imported in vessels of The United States without being liable to any other or higher duties or charges, of whatever denomination, than if such articles were imported in Ottoman vessels. Such reciprocal equality of treatment shall take effect without distinction, whether such articles come directly from the place of origin or from any other country. In the same manner there shall be perfect equality of treatment in regard to exportation, so that the same export duties shall be paid, and the same bounties and drawbacks allowed in the dominions and possessions of either of the Contracting Parties on the exportation of any article which is, or may be, legally exportable therefrom, whether such exportation shall take place in Ottoman or in vessels of The United States, and whatever may be the place of destination, whether a port of either of the Contracting Parties, or of any third Power. IX. No duties of tonnage, harbour, pilotage, lighthouse, quarantine, or other similar or corresponding duties of whatever nature, or under whatever denomination, levied in the name or for the profit of Government, public functionaries, private individuals, corporations, or establishments of any kind, shall be imposed in the ports of the dominions and possessions of either country upon the vessels of the other country which shall not equally, and under the same conditions, be imposed in the like cases on national vessels in general. Such equality of treatment shall apply reciprocally to the respec tive vessels, from whatever port or place they may arrive and whatever may be their place of destination. X. All vessels, which, according to the laws of The United States, are to be deemed vessels of The United States, and all vessels which, according to Ottoman laws, are to be deemed Ottoman vessels, shall, for the purposes of this Treaty, be deemed vessels of The United States and Ottoman vessels, respectively. XI. No charge whatsoever shall be made upon goods of The United States, being the produce or manufacture of the United States of America, whether in vessels of The United States, or other vessels, nor upon any goods the produce or manufacture of any other foreign country carried in vessels of The United States, when the same shall pass through the Straits of the Dardanelles, or of the Bosphorus, whether such goods shall pass through those straits in the vessels that brought them, or shall have been transhipped to other vessels; or whether, after having been sold for exportation, they shall, for a certain limited time, be landed in order to be placed in other vessels for the continuance of their voyage. In the latter case, the goods in question shall be deposited at Constantinople, in the magazines of the Custom-House, called transit magazines; and in any other places where there is no entrepôt, they shall be placed under the charge of the administration of the Customs. XII. The Sublime Porte, desiring to grant, by means of gradual concessions, all facilities in its power to transit by land, it is stipulated and agreed that the duty of 3 per cent., levied up to this time on articles imported into the Ottoman Empire, in their passage through the Ottoman Empire to other countries, shall be reduced to 2 per cent. payable as the duty of 3 per cent. has been paid hitherto, on arriving in the Ottoman dominions; and at the end of 8 years, to be reckoned from the day of the exchange of the ratifications of the present Treaty, to a fixed and definite tax of 1 per cent, which shall be levied, as is to be the case with respect to Ottoman produce exported, to defray the expense of registration. The Sublime Porte, at the same time, declares that it reserves to itself the right to establish, by a special enactment, the measures to be adopted for the prevention of fraud. XIII. Citizens of the United States of America, or their agents, trading in goods the produce or manufacture of foreign countries, shall be subject to the same taxes, and enjoy the same rights, privileges, and immunities, as foreign subjects dealing in goods the produce or manufacture of their own country. XIV. An exception to the stipulations laid down in Article V shall be made in regard to tobacco in any shape whatsoever, and also in regard to salt, which two articles shall cease to be included among those which the citizens of the United States of America are permitted to import into the Ottoman dominions. Citizens of The United States, however, or their agents, buying or selling tobacco or salt for consumption in the Ottoman Empire, shall be subject to the same regulations and shall pay the same duties as the most favoured Ottoman subjects trading in the two articles aforesaid; and furthermore, as a compensation for the prohibition of the two articles above-mentioned, no duty whatsoever shall in future be levied on those articles when exported from the Ottoman Empire by citizens of The United States. Citizens of The United States shall, nevertheless, be bound to declare the quantity of tobacco and salt thus exported to the proper Custom-House authorities, who shall, as heretofore, have the right to watch over the export of these articles, without thereby being entitled to levy any tax thereon on any pretence whatsoever. XV. It is understood between the two Contracting Parties that the Sublime Porte reserves to itself the faculty and right of issuing a general prohibition against the importation into the Ottoman Empire of gunpowder, cannon, arms of war, or military stores, but such prohibition will not come into operation until it shall have been officially notified, and will apply only to the articles mentioned in the decree enacting the prohibition. Any of these articles which have not been so specifically prohibited shall, on being imported into the Ottoman Empire, be subject to the local regulations, unless the Legation of the United States of America shall think fit to apply for a special licence, which will in that case be granted, provided no valid objection thereto can be alleged. Gunpowder, in particular, when allowed to be imported, will be liable to the following stipulations: 1. It shall not be sold by citizens of The United States in quantities exceeding the quantities prescribed by the local regulations. 2. When a cargo or a large quantity of gunpowder arrives in an Ottoman port, on board a vessel of The United States, such vessel shall be anchored at a particular spot, to be designated by the local authorities, and the gunpowder shall thence be conveyed, under the inspection of such authorities, to depôts, or fitting places designated by the Government, to which the parties interested shall have access under due regulations. Fowling-pieces, pistols, and ornamental or fancy weapons, as also small quantities of gunpowder for sporting, reserved for private use, shall not be subject to the stipulations of the present Article. XVI. The firmans required for merchant vessels of The United States of America, on passing through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, shall always be delivered in such manner as to occasion to such vessels the least possible delay. XVII. The captains of merchant vessels of The United States, laden with goods destined for the Ottoman Empire, shall be obliged, immediately on their arrival at the port of their destination to deposit in the Custom-House of said port a true copy of their manifest. XVIII. Contraband goods will be liable to confiscation by the Ottoman Treasury; but a report, or proces verbal, of the alleged act of contraband, must, so soon as the said goods are seized by the authorities, be drawn up and communicated to the Consular authority of the citizen or subject to whom the goods said to be contraband shall belong; and no goods can be confiscated as contraband, unless the fraud with regard to them shall be duly and legally proved. XIX. All merchandize, the produce or manufacture of the Ottoman dominions and possessions, imported into The United States of America, shall be treated in the same manner as the like merchandize, the produce and manufacture of the most favoured nation. All rights, privileges, or immunities, which are now or may hereafter be granted to, or suffered to be enjoyed by the subjects, vessels, commerce, or navigation of any foreign power in The United States of America, shall be equally granted to, and exercised and enjoyed by the subjects, vessels, commerce, and navigation of the Sublime Porte. XX. The present Treaty, when ratified, shall be substituted for the Commercial Convention of the 16th of August, 1838, between the Sublime Porte and Great Britain, on the footing of which the commerce of The United States of America has been heretofore placed, and shall continue in force for 28 years from the day of the exchange of the ratifications; and each of the two Contracting Parties being, however, at liberty to give to the other, at the end of 14 years (that time being fixed, as the provisions of this Treaty will then have come into full force), notice for its revision, or for its determination at the expiration of a year from the date of that notice, and so again at the end of 21 years. The present Treaty shall receive its execution in all and every one of the provinces of the Ottoman Empire; that is to say, in all the possessions of His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, situated in Europe or in Asia, in Egypt, and in the other parts of Africa belonging to the Sublime Porte, in Servia, and in the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. XXI. It is always understood that the Government of The United States of America does not pretend, by any Article in the present Treaty, to stipulate for more than the plain and fair construction of the terms employed, nor to preclude in any manner the Ottoman Government from the exercise of its rights of internal administration where the exercise of these rights does not evidently infringe upon the privileges accorded by ancient Treaties or by the present Treaty to citizens of The United States or their merchandize. XXII. The High Contracting Parties have agreed to appoint, jointly, Commissioners for the settlement of a tariff of CustomHouse duties, to be levied in conformity with the stipulations of the present Treaty, as well upon merchandize of every description, being the produce or manufacture of The United States of America, imported into the Ottoman Empire, as upon articles of every description the produce or manufacture of the Ottoman Empire and its possessions, which citizens of The United States or their agents are free to purchase in any part of the Ottoman Empire for exportation to The United States or to any other country. The new tariff, to be so concluded, shall remain in force during 7 years, dating from the date of the exchange of the ratifications. Each of the Contracting Parties shall have the right, a year before the expiration of that term, to demand the revision of the tariff. But if, during the 7th year, neither the one nor the other of the Contracting Parties shall avail itself of this right the tariff then existing shall continue to have the force of law for 7 years more, dating from the day of the expiration of the 7 preceding years; and the same shall be the case with respect to every successive period of 7 years. XXIII. The present Treaty shall be ratified and the ratifications shall be exchanged at Constantinople in 3 calendar months, or sooner, if possible, and shall be carried into execution when ratified. Done at Constantinople, on the 25th day of February, 1862. (L.S.) EDWARD JOY MORRIS. (L.S.) AALI. |