REPORT.
C.0
37696
42214
RECO
Froo18 NOV 09
NOV
1909
nmgration let
rearantine act
The poll tax referred to by Sir F. Lugard is the general
head tax imposed under Section 1 of the Immigration Act of
20 February 1907, copy of which is inclosed herewith. This
act is made applicable to the Philippines by Section 33.
The system by which this tax is collected through the
intermediary of the Steamship Companies is not only enjoined
by the Act but has proved to be a convenience to passengers
on the whole. The Steamship Companies are given some trouble
by it but obtain some return for this trouble by adding
generally the amount of the tax to the fare of American
citizens as well as of aliens thereby making an additional
profit of $4 at the expense of the individual American. It
would be useless to make representations against this system
either as a whole or in regard to some locality such as
HongKong.
This Act further provides in Section 4 for the exclusion
of persons afflicted with loathsome or dangerous contagious
diseases and adds in Section 9 penalties on steamships for
introducing persons so afflicted. This clause moreover
renders the liability to a fine dependent on the question
whether the medical examination at the port of sailing was
competent to detect it or not; a feature which has been tested
in Court and maintained there. It makes steamship owners
only too glad to get the inspection of their passengers
effected by the medical officers attached to certain American
Consulates abroad, It is also in the interests of the
passengers who if afflicted with such a disease as would
entail their exclusion under the Act are thereby saved from
the loss of time and expense of the voyage, and the indigni-
ties and discomforts of detention at Ellis Island and de-
portation