176
WAREHOUSES IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES.
tion concerning its management can not be procured without incurring
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 Government,
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 structures,
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 transshipped.
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 inclosures
: 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.
