pretation to be given to the phrase 'provisions of execution' (Ausführungs-bestimmungen). By this, as appears from the instruction of April 4, 1884, is to be understood ‘provisions of a purely administrative character, or such as relate to custom-house business.'” (Mr. Frelinghuysen, Sec. of State, to Mr. Bingham, min. to Japan, June 11, 1884, MS. Inst. Japan, III. 253.) "Mr. Reed's No. 263, of the 10th instant, informs the Department of an interpellation made in the Senate by the Marquis de Muros in regard to the prospect of negotiations between Spain and the United States for a commercial treaty, and the response of the minister of state thereto. It appears that Señor Elduayen deems a specially favoring treaty impracticable at present in view not only of the distressing condition of the Antillean finances, but because he holds that other nations having the most favored [nation] clause in their treaties with Spain would be entitled to all the benefits of any special arrangement with the United States. The minister's statements can not have failed to impress you with some surprise. You are aware that this government has always assumed that Spain held the same view as ourselves respecting the effect of a reciprocity treaty in connection with the most-favored-nation clause in other treaties. This country has that clause in many of its compacts with foreign states, but it has never occurred to them or to us to suppose that we were thereby constrained to grant to those treaty powers without equivalent the privileges which we had by special engagements stipulated to concede to countries like Hawaii and Canada, for a valuable consideration." (Mr. Frelinghuysen, Sec. of State, to Mr. Foster, min. to Spain, June 28, 1884, MS. Inst. Spain, XIX. 601.) See, also, Mr. Rives, Assist. Sec. of State, to Mr. Fay, Oct. 5, 1888, 170 MS. Dom. Let. 157; Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Walker, No. 78, April 28, 1888, For. Rel. 1888, I. 422–423. "I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 10th ultimo, Discussions with Great Britain, 1884-1885. "You therein indicate the view of Her Majesty's government that in consequence of recent treaties or of treaties which may be negotiated, trade carried on between the United States and the Sandwich Islands, Mexico, Central America, the Spanish West Indies, and San Domingo has been, or is likely to be, placed on a more favored footing than trade between the United States and the British West Indies. "Your government thereupon points out that the United States as a matter of fact enjoy complete most-favored-nation treatment in those colonies, and accordingly asks that complete most-favorednation treatment shall likewise be extended in the United States to articles the growth, produce, or manufacture of the British West India colonies.' "To this end Lord Granville instructs you to propose a convention or declaration whereby the most-favored-nation treatment. stipulated in Article II. of the treaty of the 3rd July, 1815, shall be made applicable to the trade between the United States and those colonies. "Lord Granville's proposition does not appear to contemplate the concession to the United States of any special privileges for goods or ships like those which, in the view of this government, are necessary to any such agreement. For instance, the British West Indies impose customs and export duties, similar to those which in negotiating with the countries named by you, the United States would require to be removed or essentially modified by them as a condition of placing their staples on our free list. "It is clear that the second article of the treaty of 1815 has not authorized, and could not authorize, Great Britain to ask for the products or shipping of the United Kingdom, favors identical with or equivalent to those which Spanish-American and West India. colonial products and shipping may receive in the ports of the United States by reason of special reciprocity treaties. The formal extension of this article to the British West India colonies, therefore, would not give them other rights than those now enjoyed by the United Kingdom. Those colonies possess, as a matter of fact, and without express stipulation, the complete most-favored-nation treatment now accorded to the mother country. British vessels and their cargoes from any part of the world are admitted into ports of the United States on the same terms as to duties, imposts, and charges, as those of the United States. "It may, in view of the limited formulation of Lord Granville's proposition, be premature to assume that his lordship contemplates the negotiation of a reciprocity treaty which shall secure for the trade of the West India colonies with the United States special favors, although the negotiation of the Canadian reciprocity treaty of 1854 would show that this class of international engagements, applying only to particular colonies, is not in violation of the policy of Her Majesty's government." Mr. Frelinghuysen, Sec. of State, to Mr. West, British min., July 16, 1884, Blue Book, Commercial No. 4 (1885), 4-5; MS. Notes to Great Britain, XIX. 514. December 4, 1884, Mr. Frelinghuysen submitted to Mr. West a project of a convention for commercial reciprocity between the United States and the British West Indies. Of this project Art. XIII. reads as follows: "The Contracting Parties, however, mutually agree that the conditional privileges which this convention expressly reserves and confines to the goods and vessels of the respective countries under the national flags are not, under the operation of favored-nation clauses in existing treaties which either of them may have concluded with other countries, to be deemed as extending to the goods or vessels of such other countries without equivalent consideration on the part of such other countries; and if any foreign country should claim, under existing favored-nation engagements, to share in the benefits of the commercial intercourse which this convention creates as between the United States and the several British colonies aforesaid, and should either party deem such claim to be allowable, it is hereby engaged that the party affected thereby shall have the right to denounce the present convention under Article XII. hereof; or else that any such treaty with any foreign country, so far as it may be contrary to the terms of this convention, may be denounced and terminated, so soon as the terms of such treaty may permit, in which case the alternative right of denunciation of the present convention shall not be exercised." Mr. Frelinghuysen, Sec. of State, to Mr. West, British min., Dec. 4, 1884, "Article XIII. expressly provides that the privileges conceded by the treaty are not to be granted by either party to other nations by reason of the most-favored-nation clause existing in any treaty with such nations, unless any such nation give what, in the opinion of the other party is an equivalent. But her Majesty's government are decidedly of opinion that the exception to most-favored-nation treatment thus contemplated would be an infraction of the most-favorednation clause as hitherto interpreted in the law of nations. To take an example, such a clause governs the trade between the British West Indies and Belgium. Her Majesty's government can not conceive how the claim of Belgium to have her imports, if she had any, into those islands, placed on the same footing as the similar imports from the United States when any favor is granted to these latter, can be rejected by alleging a subsequent agreement come to between Great Britain and the United States, to which Belgium had not been a party. "The interpretation of the most-favored-nation clause involved in the United States' proposals is, that concessions granted conditionally and for a consideration can not be claimed under it. From this interpretation Her Majesty's government entirely and emphatically dissent. The most-favored-nation clause has now become the most valuable part of the system of commercial treaties, and exists between nearly all the nations of the earth. It leads more than any other stipulation to simplicity of tariffs and to ever increased freedom of trade; while the system now proposed would lead countries to seek exclusive markets and would thus fetter instead of liberating trade. Its effect has been, with few execeptions, that any given article is taxed in each country at practically one rate only. Thus in France, although there exists a general tariff and although France has by separate treaties with various countries engaged to reduce the duties of the general tariff on various articles, the list of which varies in each treaty, yet, owing to the operation of the most-favored-nation. clause existing in each of those treaties, the goods of all nations having such an article in their treaties are taxed in accordance with the ' conventional' tariff, which accordingly becomes the combination of all the lowest duties on each article appearing in the separate treaties. But should the system contemplated by the United States be widely adopted, there will be a return to the old and exceedingly.inconvenient system under which the same article in the same country would pay different duties varying according to its country of origin, the nationality of the importing ship, and, perhaps at some future time, varying also with the nationality of the importer himself. "It is, moreover, obvious that the interpretation now put forward would nullify the most-favored-nation clause; for any country, say, France, though bound by the most-favored-nation clause in her treaty with Belgium, might make treaties with any other country involving reductions of duty on both sides, and, by the mere insertion of a statement that these reductions were granted reciprocally and for a consideration, might yet refuse to grant them to Belgium unless the latter granted what France might consider an equivalent. "Such a system would press most hardly on those countries which had already reformed their tariffs, and had no equivalent concessions to offer, and, therefore, Great Britain, which has reformed her tariff, is most deeply interested in resisting it. · Her Majesty's government are aware that the draft treaty foresees the possibility of one or the other of the contracting parties being unable or unwilling to withhold the advantages of it from governments that might claim them under the most-favored-nation clause; but they can not admit the soundness of a commercial policy based upon treaties which may at any moment have to be broken either owing to the provisions of other treaties previously made by one of the contracting parties, or owing to the subsequent conclusion of treaties extending the area of the policy in question; and which, if so broken, are naturally liable to be denounced at the will of the other contracting party." Earl Granville, Sec. of State for For. Aff., to Mr. West, British min., Feb. 12, 1885, Blue Book, Commercial No. 4 (1885), 21-22. "Following the treaty of 1883 with Mexico, which rested on the basis of a reciprocal exemption from customs duties, other similar treaties were initiated by my predecessor. "Recognizing the need of less obstructed traffic with Cuba and Porto Rico, and met by the desire of Spain to succor languishing interests in the Antilles, steps were taken to attain those ends by a treaty of commerce. A similar treaty was afterwards signed by the Dominican Republic. Subsequently overtures were made by Her Britannic Majesty's government for a like mutual extension of commercial intercourse with the British West Indian and South American dependencies; but without result. "On taking office, I withdrew for reexamination the treaties signed with Spain and Santo Domingo, then pending before the Senate. The result has been to satisfy me of the inexpediency of entering into engagements of this character not covering the entire traffic. "These treaties contemplated the surrender by the United States of large revenues for inadequate considerations. Upon sugar alone duties were surrendered to an amount far exceeding all the advantages offered in exchange. Even were it intended to relieve our consumers, it was evident that, so long as the exemption but partially covered our importation, such relief would be illusory. To relinquish a revenue so essential seemed highly improvident at a time when new and larger drains upon the Treasury were contemplated. Moreover, embarrassing questions would have arisen under the favored-nation clauses of treaties with other nations. "As a further objection, it is evident that tariff regulation by treaty diminishes that independent control over its own revenues which is essential for the safety and welfare of any government. Emergency calling for an increase of taxation may at any time arise. and no engagement with a foreign power should exist to hamper the action of the government." President Cleveland, annual message, Dec. 8, 1885, For. Rel. 1885, xvi. "A covenant to give privileges granted to the most-favorednation,' it was held by two of the most distinguished Discussions, 1886 of my predecessors, Mr. Clay and Mr. Edward Liv 1895. ingston, only refers to gratuitous privileges' and does not cover privileges granted on the condition of a reciprocal advantage. This distinction has since then been repeatedly confirmed and is accepted by foreign publicists with great unanimity. This quality of reciprocity, which takes a case out of the category of gratuitousness, belongs, I apprehend, to all our concessions to foreign states giving their citizens rights to hold real estate in the United States. Such concessions are based on reciprocity. We give the rights to them because they give the right to us. Hence such privileges can not be claimed under the most-favored-nation' clause by foreign governments to which they are not specially conceded." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Miller, June 15, 1886, 160 MS. Dom. |