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The Secretary of the Treasury shall designate the several ports and subports of entry in Porto Rico and shall make such rules and regulations and appoint such agents as may be necessary to collect the duties and taxes authorized to be levied, collected, and paid in Porto Rico by the provisions of this Act, and he shall fix the compensation and provide for the payment thereof of all such officers, agents, and assistants as he may find it necessary to employ to carry out the provisions hereof: Provided, however, That as soon as a civil government for Porto Rico shall have been organized in accordance with the provisions of this Act and notice thereof shall have been given to the President he shall make proclamation thereof, and thereafter all collections of duties and taxes in Porto Rico under the provisions of this Act shall be paid into the treasury of Porto Rico, to be expended as required by law for the government and benefit thereof instead of being paid into the Treasury of the United States. (Sec. 4.)

The laws and ordinances of Porto Rico now in force shall continue in full force and effect, except as altered, amended, or modified hereinafter, or as altered or modified by military orders and decrees in force when this Act shall take effect, and so far as the same are not inconsistent or in conflict with the statutory laws of the United States not locally inapplicable, or the provisions hereof, until altered, amended, or repealed by the legislative authority hereinafter provided for Porto Rico or by Act of Congress of the United States. (Sec. 8.)

The statutory laws of the United States not locally inapplicable, except as hereinbefore or hereinafter otherwise provided, shall have the same force and effect in Porto Rico as in the United States, except the internal-revenue laws, which, in view of the provisions of section three, shall not have force and effect in Porto Rico. (Apr. 12, 1900, sec. 14.)

Articles, goods, wares, or merchandise going into Porto Rico from the United States shall be exempted from the payment of any tax imposed by the internal-revenue laws of the United States. (Oct. 3, 1913, sec. IV, D.)

Registry of Vessels and Coasting Trade.

The Commissioner of Navigation shall make such regulations, subject to the approval of the Secretary of Commerce, as he may deem expedient for the nationalization of all vessels owned by the inhabi

tants of Porto Rico on the eleventh day of April, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, and which continued to be so owned up to the date of such nationalization, and for the admission of the same to all the benefits of the coasting trade of the United States; and the coasting trade between Porto Rico and the United States shall be regulated in accordance with the provisions of law applicable to such trade between any two great coasting districts of the United States. (Apr. 12, 1900, sec. 9.) [See p. 157, par. 2.]

Quarantine and Public Health.

Quarantine stations shall be established at such places in Porto Rico as the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service of the United States shall direct, and the quarantine regulations relating to the importation of diseases from other countries shall be under the control of the Government of the United States. (Apr. 12, 1900, sec. 10; July 1, 1902.)

Harbors and Navigable Waters.

All property which may have been acquired in Porto Rico by the United States under the cession of Spain in said treaty of peace in any public bridges, road houses, water powers, highways, unnavigable streams, and the beds thereof, subterranean waters, mines, or minerals under the surface of private lands, and all property which at the time of the cession belonged, under the laws of Spain then in force, to the various harbor-works boards of Porto Rico, and all the harbor shores, docks, slips, and reclaimed lands, but not including harbor areas or navigable waters, is hereby placed under the control of the Government established by this Act to be administered for the benefit of the people of Porto Rico; and the legislative assembly hereby created shall have authority, subject to the limitations imposed upon all its acts, to legislate with respect to all such matters as it may deem advisable. (Apr. 12, 1900, sec. 13.)

The President be, and he is hereby, authorized to make, within one year after the approval of this Act, such reservation of public lands and buildings belonging to the United States in the island of Porto Rico, for military, naval, light-house, marine-hospital, post-offices, customhouses, United States courts, and other public purposes, as he may deem necessary, and all the public lands and buildings, not including harbor areas and navigable streams and bodies of water and the submerged lands underlying the same, owned by the United States in said island and not so reserved be, and the same are hereby, granted to the government of Porto Rico, to be held or disposed of for the use and benefit of the people of said island: Provided, That said grant is upon the express condition that the government of Porto Rico, by proper authority, release to the United States any interest or claim it may have in or upon the lands or buildings reserved by the President under the provisions of this Act: And provided further, That nothing herein contained shall be so construed as to affect any legal or equitable rights acquired by the government of Porto Rico or by any other party, under any contract lease, or license made by the United States authorities prior to the first day of May, nineteen hundred. (July 1, 1902.)

Wharves and Piers.

The Secretary of War be, and he is hereby, empowered, subject to the restrictions and under the conditions hereinafter mentioned, to authorize the construction, extension, and maintenance of any wharf, pier, dolphin, boom, weir, breakwater, sea wall, bulkhead, jetty, or other structure on any of the lands belonging to the United States which underlie the harbor areas and navigable streams and bodies. of waters in or surrounding Porto Rico and the islands adjacent thereto and the filling in and dredging of such lands. (Sec. 1.)

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All authorizations granted by the Secretary of War for any such construction, extension, or maintenance.

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(b) Shall be subject to alteration, amendment, or repeal by Congress;

(c) Shall provide that the wharfage fees and charges for vessels, for passengers, and for goods loaded or discharged on, from, at, or over any such structure, and for approach and entry to any such structure, shall be no greater than are just, reasonable, and fairly remunerative, and for that purpose shall at all times be subject to regulation and revision by the said Secretary of War; that such fees and charges shall be the same for all persons, and all persons shall have equal right to approach, enter, and use the said structure, subject to such reasonable rules and regulations as the grantee thereof may establish, all of which rules and regulations shall be subject to revision by the Secretary of War:

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(g) That the said structure shall not be sublet, sold, transferred, or assigned, nor shall the authorization therefor be granted, sold, transferred, or assigned without the consent of the Secretary of War, nor in any case to a person engaged, directly or indirectly, in the same line of business, in the same harbor area, navigable stream, or body of water, and that any grant, subletting, sale, transfer, or assignment in violation hereof shall be null and void;

(h) That any and all vessels owned or chartered by the United States Government shall in case of any emergency, or in time of war, have prior right, free of charge, to the use of any such structure; and

(i) Shall contain such further restrictions as the Secretary of War may see fit to impose therein.

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