_To the Senate of the United States_:
In my annual message at the commencement of the present session of
Congress I informed the two Houses that instructions had been given
by the Executive to the United States envoy at Berlin to negotiate
a commercial treaty with the States composing the Germanic Customs
Union for a reduction of the duties on tobacco and other agricultural
productions of the United States, in exchange for concessions on our
part in relation to certain articles of export the product of the skill
and industry of those countries. I now transmit a treaty which proposes
to carry into effect the views and intentions thus previously expressed
and declared, accompanied by two dispatches from Mr. Wheaton, our
minister at Berlin. This is believed to be the first instance in which
the attempt has proved successful to obtain a reduction of the heavy and
onerous duties to which American tobacco is subject in foreign markets,
and, taken in connection with the greatly reduced duties on rice and
lard and the free introduction of raw cotton, for which the treaty
provides, I can not but anticipate from its ratification important
benefits to the great agricultural, commercial, and navigating interests
of the United States. The concessions on our part relate to articles
which are believed not to enter injuriously into competition with the
manufacturing interest of the United States, while a country of great
extent and embracing a population of 28,000,000 human beings will more
thoroughly than heretofore be thrown open to the commercial enterprise
of our fellow-citizens.
Inasmuch as the provisions of the treaty come to some extent in conflict
with existing laws, it is my intention, should it receive your approval
and ratification, to communicate a copy of it to the House of
Representatives, in order that that House may take such action upon it
as it may deem necessary to give efficiency to its provisions.