the provisions of section 3 of the tariff act of 1897, went into effect on
the 1st day of June following. It has relieved a portion of our export
trade from serious embarrassment. Further negotiations are now pending
under section 4 of the same act with a view to the increase of trade
between the two countries to their mutual advantage. Negotiations with
other governments, in part interrupted by the war with Spain, are in
progress under both sections of the tariff act. I hope to be able to
announce some of the results of these negotiations during the present
session of Congress.
Negotiations to the same end with Germany have been set on foot. Meanwhile
no effort has been relaxed to convince the Imperial Government of the
thoroughness of our inspection of pork products for exportation, and it is
trusted that the efficient administration of this measure by the Department
of Agriculture will be recognized as a guaranty of the healthfulness of the
food staples we send abroad to countries where their use is large and
necessary.
I transmitted to the Senate on the 10th of February last information
touching the prohibition against the importation of fresh fruits from this
country, which had then recently been decreed by Germany on the ground of
danger of disseminating the San Jose scale insect. This precautionary
measure was justified by Germany on the score of the drastic steps taken in
several States of the Union against the spread of the pest, the elaborate
reports of the Department of Agriculture being put in evidence to show the
danger to German fruit-growing interests should the scale obtain a lodgment
in that country. Temporary relief was afforded in the case of large
consignments of fruit then on the way by inspection and admission when
found noninfected. Later the prohibition was extended to dried fruits of
every kind, but was relaxed so as to apply only to unpeeled fruit and fruit
waste. As was to be expected, the alarm reached to other countries, and
Switzerland has adopted a similar inhibition. Efforts are in progress to
induce the German and Swiss Governments to relax the prohibition in favor
of dried fruits shown to have been cured under circumstances rendering the
existence of animal life impossible.
Our relations with Great Britain have continued on the most friendly
footing. Assenting to our request, the protection of Americans and their
interests in Spanish jurisdiction was assumed by the diplomatic and
consular representatives of Great Britain, who fulfilled their delicate and
arduous trust with tact and zeal, eliciting high commendation. I may be
allowed to make fitting allusion to the instance of Mr. Ramsden, Her
Majesty's consul at Santiago de Cuba, whose untimely death after
distinguished service and untiring effort during the siege of that city was
sincerely lamented.
In the early part of April last, pursuant to a request made at the instance
of the Secretary of State by the British ambassador at this capital, the
Canadian government granted facilities for the passage of four United
States revenue cutters from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic coast by way of
the Canadian canals and the St. Lawrence River. The vessels had reached
Lake Ontario and were there awaiting the opening of navigation when war was
declared between the United States and Spain. Her Majesty's Government
thereupon, by a communication of the latter part of April, stated that the
permission granted before the outbreak of hostilities would not be
withdrawn provided the United States Government gave assurance that the
vessels in question would proceed direct to a United States port without
engaging in any hostile operation. This Government promptly agreed to the
stipulated condition, it being understood that the vessels would not be
prohibited from resisting any hostile attack.
It will give me especial satisfaction if I shall be authorized to
communicate to you a favorable conclusion of the pending negotiations with
Great Britain in respect to the Dominion of Canada. It is the earnest wish
of this Government to remove all sources of discord and irritation in our
relations with the neighboring Dominion. The trade between the two
countries is constantly increasing, and it is important to both countries
that all reasonable facilities should be granted for its development.
The Government of Greece strongly urges the onerousness of the duty here
imposed upon the currants of that country, amounting to 100 per cent or
more of their market value. This fruit is stated to be exclusively a Greek
product, not coming into competition with any domestic product. The
question of reciprocal commercial relations with Greece, including the
restoration of currants to the free list, is under consideration.
The long-standing claim of Bernard Campbell for damages for injuries
sustained from a violent assault committed against him by military
authorities in the island of Haiti has been settled by the agreement of
that Republic to pay him $10,000 in American gold. Of this sum $5,000 has
already been paid. It is hoped that other pending claims of American
citizens against that Republic may be amicably adjusted.
Pending the consideration by the Senate of the treaty signed June 1897, by
the plenipotentiaries of the United States and of the Republic of Hawaii,
providing for the annexation of the islands, a joint resolution to
accomplish the same purpose by accepting the offered cession and
incorporating the ceded territory into the Union was adopted by the
Congress and approved July 7, 1898. I thereupon directed the United States
steamship Philadelphia to convey Rear-Admiral Miller to Honolulu, and
intrusted to his hands this important legislative act, to be delivered to
the President of the Republic of Hawaii, with whom the Admiral and the
United States minister were authorized to make appropriate arrangements for
transferring the sovereignty of the islands to the United States. This was
simply but impressively accomplished on the 12th of August last by the
delivery of a certified copy of the resolution to President Dole, who
thereupon yielded up to the representative of the Government of the United
States the sovereignty and public property of the Hawaiian Islands.
Pursuant to the terms of the joint resolution and in exercise of the
authority thereby conferred upon me, I directed that the civil, judicial,
and military powers theretofore exercised by the officers of the Government
of the Republic of Hawaii should continue to be exercised by those officers
until Congress shall provide a government for the incorporated territory,
subject to my power to remove such officers and to fill vacancies. The
President, officers, and troops of the Republic thereupon took the oath of
allegiance to the United States, thus providing for the uninterrupted
continuance of all the administrative and municipal functions of the
annexed territory until Congress shall otherwise enact.
Following the further provision of the joint resolution, I appointed the
Hons. Shelby M. Cullom, of Illinois, John T. Morgan, of Alabama, Robert R.
Hitt, of Illinois, Sanford B. Dole, of Hawaii, and Walter F. Frear, of
Hawaii, as commissioners to confer and recommend to Congress such
legislation concerning the Hawaiian Islands as they should deem necessary
or proper. The commissioners having fulfilled the mission confided to them,
their report will be laid before you at an early day. It is believed that
their recommendations will have the earnest consideration due to the
magnitude of the responsibility resting upon you to give such shape to the
relationship of those mid-Pacific lands to our home Union as will benefit
both in the highest degree, realizing the aspirations of the community that
has cast its lot with us and elected to share our political heritage, while
at the same time justifying the foresight of those who for three-quarters
of a century have looked to the assimilation of Hawaii as a natural and
inevitable consummation, in harmony with our needs and in fulfillment of
our cherished traditions.
The questions heretofore pending between Hawaii and Japan growing out of
the alleged mistreatment of Japanese treaty immigrants were, I am pleased
to say, adjusted before the act of transfer by the payment of a reasonable
indemnity to the Government of Japan.
Under the provisions of the joint resolution, the existing customs
relations of the Hawaiian Islands with the United States and with other
countries remain unchanged until legislation shall otherwise provide. The
consuls of Hawaii here and in foreign countries continue to fulfill their
commercial agencies, while the United States consulate at Honolulu is
maintained for all appropriate services pertaining to trade and the
revenue. It would be desirable that all foreign consuls in the Hawaiian
Islands should receive new exequaturs from this Government.
The attention of Congress is called to the fact that, our consular offices
having ceased to exist in Hawaii and being about to cease in other
countries coming under the sovereignty of the United States, the provisions
for the relief and transportation of destitute American seamen in these
countries under our consular regulations will in consequence terminate. It
is proper, therefore, that new legislation should be enacted upon this
subject in order to meet the changed conditions.
The interpretation of certain provisions of the extradition convention of
December 11, 1861, has been at various times the occasion of controversy
with the Government of Mexico. An acute difference arose in the case of the
Mexican demand for the delivery of Jesus Guerra, who, having led a
marauding expedition near the border with the proclaimed purpose of
initiating an insurrection against President Diaz, escaped into Texas.
Extradition was refused on the ground that the alleged offense was
political in its character, and therefore came within the treaty proviso of
nonsurrender. The Mexican contention was that the exception only related to
purely political offenses, and that as Guerra's acts were admixed with the
common crime of murder, arson, kidnaping, and robbery, the option of
nondelivery became void, a position which this Government was unable to
admit in view of the received international doctrine and practice in the
matter. The Mexican Government, in view of this, gave notice January 24,
1898, of the termination of the convention, to take effect twelve months
from that date, at the same time inviting the conclusion of a new
convention, toward which negotiations are on foot.
In this relation I may refer to the necessity of some amendment of our
existing extradition statute. It is a common stipulation of such treaties
that neither party shall be bound to give up its own citizens, with the
added proviso in one of our treaties, that with Japan, that it may
surrender if it see fit. It is held in this country by an almost uniform
course of decisions that where a treaty negatives the obligation to
surrender the President is not invested with legal authority to act. The
conferment of such authority would be in the line of that sound morality
which shrinks from affording secure asylum to the author of a heinous
crime. Again, statutory provision might well be made for what is styled
extradition by way of transit, whereby a fugitive surrendered by one
foreign government to another may be conveyed across the territory of the
United States to the jurisdiction of the demanding state. A recommendation
in this behalf made in the President's message of 1886 was not acted upon.
The matter is presented for your consideration.
The problem of the Mexican free zone has been often discussed with regard
to its inconvenience as a provocative of smuggling into the United States
along an extensive and thinly guarded land border. The effort made by the
joint resolution of March 1, 1895, to remedy the abuse charged by
suspending the privilege of free transportation in bond across the
territory of the United States to Mexico failed of good result, as is
stated in Report No. 702 of the House of Representatives, submitted in the
last session, March 11, 1898. As the question is one to be conveniently met
by wise concurrent legislation of the two countries looking to the
protection of the revenues by harmonious measures operating equally on
either side of the boundary, rather than by conventional arrangements, I
suggest that Congress consider the advisability of authorizing and inviting
a conference of representatives of the Treasury Departments of the United
States and Mexico to consider the subject in all its complex bearings, and
make report with pertinent recommendations to the respective Governments
for the information and consideration of their Congresses.
The Mexican Water Boundary Commission has adjusted all matters submitted to
it to the satisfaction of both Governments save in three important
cases--that of the "Chamizal" at El Paso, Tex., where the two commissioners
failed to agree, and wherein, for this case only, this Government has
proposed to Mexico the addition of a third member; the proposed elimination
of what are known as "Bancos," small isolated islands formed by the cutting
off of bends in the Rio Grande, from the operation of the treaties of 1884
and 1889, recommended by the commissioners and approved by this Government,
but still under consideration by Mexico; and the subject of the "Equitable
distribution of the waters of the Rio Grande," for which the commissioners
recommended an international dam and reservoir, approved by Mexico, but
still under consideration by this Government. Pending these questions it is
necessary to extend the life of the commission, which expires December 23
next.
The coronation of the young Queen of the Netherlands was made the occasion
of fitting congratulations.
The claim of Victor H. McCord against Peru, which for a number of years has
been pressed by this Government and has on several occasions attracted the
attention of the Congress, has been satisfactorily adjusted. A protocol was
signed May 17, 1898, whereby, the fact of liability being admitted, the
question of the amount to be awarded was submitted to the chief justice of
Canada as sole arbitrator. His award sets the indemnity due the claimant at
$40,000.
The Government of Peru has given the prescribed notification of its
intention to abrogate the treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation
concluded with this country August 31, 1887. As that treaty contains many
important provisions necessary to the maintenance of commerce and good
relations, which could with difficulty be replaced by the negotiation of
renewed provisions within the brief twelve months intervening before the
treaty terminates, I have invited suggestions by Peru as to the particular
provisions it is desired to annul, in the hope of reaching an arrangement
whereby the remaining articles may be provisionally saved.
His Majesty the Czar having announced his purpose to raise the Imperial
Russian mission at this capital to the rank of an embassy, I responded,
under the authority conferred by the act of March 3, 1893, by commissioning
and accrediting the actual representative at St. Petersburg in the capacity
of ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary. The Russian ambassador to
this country has since presented his credentials.
The proposal of the Czar for a general reduction of the vast military
establishments that weigh so heavily upon many peoples in time of peace was
communicated to this Government with an earnest invitation to be
represented in the conference which it is contemplated to assemble with a
view to discussing the means of accomplishing so desirable a result. His
Majesty was at once informed of the cordial sympathy of this Government
with the principle involved in his exalted proposal and of the readiness of
the United States to take part in the conference. The active military force
of the United States, as measured by our population, territorial area, and
taxable wealth, is, and under any conceivable prospective conditions must
continue to be, in time of peace so conspicuously less than that of the
armed powers to whom the Czar's appeal is especially addressed that the
question can have for us no practical importance save as marking an
auspicious step toward the betterment of the condition of the modern
peoples and the cultivation of peace and good will among them; but in this
view it behooves us as a nation to lend countenance and aid to the
beneficent project.
The claims of owners of American sealing vessels for seizure by Russian
cruisers in Bering Sea are being pressed to a settlement. The equities of
the cases justify the expectation that a measure of reparation will
eventually be accorded in harmony with precedent and in the light of the
proven facts.
The recommendation made in my special message of April 27 last is renewed,
that appropriation be made to reimburse the master and owners of the
Russian bark Hans for wrongful arrest of the master and detention of the
vessel in February, 1896, by officers of the United States district court
for the southern district of Mississippi. The papers accompanying my said
message make out a most meritorious claim and justify the urgency with
which it has been presented by the Government of Russia.
Malietoa Laupepa, King of Samoa, died on August 22 last. According to
Article I of the general act of Berlin, "his successor shall be duly
elected according to the laws and customs of Samoa."
Arrangements having been agreed upon between the signatories of the general
act for the return of Mataafa and the other exiled Samoan chiefs, they were
brought from Jaluit by a German war vessel and landed at Apia on September
18 last.
Whether the death of Malietoa and the return of his old-time rival Mataafa
will add to the undesirable complications which the execution of the
tripartite general act has heretofore developed remains to be seen. The
efforts of this Government will, as heretofore, be addressed toward a
harmonious and exact fulfillment of the terms of the international
engagement to which the United States became a party in 1889.
The Cheek claim against Siam, after some five years of controversy, has
been adjusted by arbitration under an agreement signed July 6, 1897, an
award of 706,721 ticals (about $187,987.78 ), with release of the Cheek
estate from mortgage claims, having been rendered March 21, 1898, in favor
of the claimant by the arbitrator, Sir Nicholas John Hannen, British chief
justice for China and Japan.
An envoy from Siam has been accredited to this Government and has presented
his credentials.
Immediately upon the outbreak of the war with Spain the Swiss Government,
fulfilling the high mission it has deservedly assumed as the patron of the
International Red Cross, proposed to the United States and Spain that they
should severally recognize and carry into execution, as a modus vivendi,
during the continuance of hostilities, the additional articles proposed by
the international conference of Geneva, October 20, 1868, extending the
effects of the existing Red Cross convention of 1864 to the conduct of
naval war. Following the example set by France and Germany in 1870 in
adopting such a modus vivendi, and in view of the accession of the United
States to those additional articles in 1882, although the exchange of
ratifications thereof still remained uneffected, the Swiss proposal was
promptly and cordially accepted by us, and simultaneously by Spain.
This Government feels a keen satisfaction in having thus been enabled to
testify its adherence to the broadest principles of humanity even amidst
the clash of war, and it is to be hoped that the extension of the Red Cross
compact to hostilities by sea as well as on land may soon become an
accomplished fact through the general promulgation of the additional naval
Red Cross articles by the maritime powers now parties to the convention of
1864.
The important question of the claim of Switzerland to the perpetual
cantonal allegiance of American citizens of Swiss origin has not made
hopeful progress toward a solution, and controversies in this regard still
continue.
The newly accredited envoy of the United States to the Ottoman Porte
carries instructions looking to the disposal of matters in controversy with
Turkey for a number of years. He is especially charged to press for a just
settlement of our claims for indemnity by reason of the destruction of the
property of American missionaries resident in that country during the
Armenian troubles of 1895, as well as for the recognition of older claims
of equal justness.
He is also instructed to seek an adjustment of the dispute growing out of
the refusal of Turkey to recognize the acquired citizenship of Ottoman-born
persons naturalized in the United States since 1869 without prior imperial
consent, and in the same general relation he is directed to endeavor to
bring about a solution of the question which has more or less acutely
existed since 1869 concerning the jurisdictional rights of the United
States in matters of criminal procedure and punishment under Article IV of
the treaty of 1830. This latter difficulty grows out of a verbal
difference, claimed by Turkey to be essential, between the original Turkish
text and the promulgated translation.
After more than two years from the appointment of a consul of this country
to Erzerum, he has received his exequatur.
The arbitral tribunal appointed under the treaty of February 2, 1897,
between Great Britain and Venezuela, to determine the boundary line between
the latter and the colony of British Guiana, is to convene at Paris during
the present month. It is a source of much gratification to this Government
to see the friendly resort of arbitration applied to the settlement of this
controversy, not alone because of the earnest part we have had in bringing
about the result, but also because the two members named on behalf of
Venezuela, Mr. Chief Justice Fuller and Mr. Justice Brewer, chosen from our
highest court, appropriately testify the continuing interest we feel in the
definitive adjustment of the question according to the strictest rules of
justice. The British members, Lord Herschell and Sir Richard Collins, are
jurists of no less exalted repute, while the fifth member and president of
the tribunal, M. F. De Martens, has earned a world-wide reputation as an
authority upon international law.
The claim of Felipe Scandella against Venezuela for arbitrary expulsion and
injury to his business has been adjusted by the revocation of the order of
expulsion and by the payment of the sum of $16,000.
I have the satisfaction of being able to state that the Bureau of the
American Republics, created in 1890 as the organ for promoting commercial
intercourse and fraternal relations among the countries of the Western
Hemisphere, has become a more efficient instrument of the wise purposes of
its founders, and is receiving the cordial support of the contributing
members of the international union which are actually represented in its
board of management. A commercial directory, in two volumes, containing a
mass of statistical matter descriptive of the industrial and commercial
interests of the various countries, has been printed in English, Spanish,
Portuguese, and French, and a monthly bulletin published in these four
languages and distributed in the Latin-American countries as well as in the
United States has proved to be a valuable medium for disseminating
information and furthering the varied interests of the international
union.