176 
WAREHOUSES IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 
tion concerning its management can not be procured without incur 
ring expense. 
E. C. Bellows, G'onsul-General. 
Yokohama, Japan, July 28,190^. 
KOBE. 
(From United States Vice-Consul Sharp, Kobe, Japan.) 
The warehouses at this port have a total area of 0,411 square yards, 
and are in 21 structures. Information regarding the original cost of 
the structures can not be obtained. They are all of brick, with 
wooden floorings, except those owned and conducted by the Govern 
ment, which are floored with cement. 
The warehouses are owned and conducted as follow 
BONDEI) WAREHOUSES. 
(a) Owned and conducted by the Government—one structure, covering 284 
square yards. 
(ft) Owned and conducted by the Kobe Pier Company—three structures, 
covering 1,379 square yards. 
(c) Owned and conducted by the Tokyo Warehouse Company—eight struct 
ures, covering 1,947 square yards. 
((I) Owned and conducted by the Mitsui Bussan Kaisha—two structures, 
covering 316 square yards. 
CUSTOMS WAREHOUSES (NOT BONDED). 
(a) For imports—two structures, covering 636 square yards. 
(ft) For exports—five structures, covering 1,849 square yards. 
The dimensions and number of warehouses in use may be increased 
or diminished after obtaining the sanction of the minister of finance. 
When merchandise in transit or in bond is brought to a port, 
the steamship agent, acting in behalf of the consignor or consignee, 
as the case may be, generally appoints a stevedore, who, instructed 
by the steamship agent, performs all the necessary duties and exercises 
care over the merchandise in question, until it has been either 
cleared at the customs, stored in the bonded warehouse, or trans 
shipped. When it is necessary to have the merchandise stored in 
the bonded warehouse, a general routine at the customs is gone 
through by the stevedore, the warehouse having no particular service 
to render but to receive at the door and store the merchandise, and 
to issue the warrant therefor. 
In instances of transshipment the stevedore often obtains special 
permission from the customs to hold the merchandise without having 
it taken to the customs warehouse, or without storing in the bonded 
warehouse, when the date of sailing of the connecting vessel for 
transshipment is definitely known, even though it be for several days 
longer than the seventy-two hours from the time of the first landing 
which is the limit of free reserve fixed by the Government. 
For scales of charges for storage, I refer to the following in- 
closures : a Customs table of charges; tariff of storage charges of 
a On file in the Bureau of Statistics, Department of Commerce and Labor, 
where they may be consulted by persons interested.