Office of the Historian

No. 650.
By the President of the United States of America,

a proclamation.

Whereas satisfactory proof has been given to me by the Government of Spain that no discriminating duties of tonnage or imposts are imposed or levied in the islands of Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines, [Page 1035] and all other countries belonging to the Crown of Spain, upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States, or upon the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in the same from the United States or from any foreign country;

And whereas notification of such abolition of discriminating duties of tonnage and imposts as aforesaid has been given to me by a memorandum of agreement signed this day at the city of Washington between the Secretary of State of the United States and the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Her Majesty the Queen Regent of Spain accredited to the Government of the the United States of America;

Now, therefore, I, Grover Cleveland, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by section 4228 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, do hereby declare and proclaim, that from and after the date of this, my proclamation, being also the date of the notification received as aforesaid, the foreign discriminating duties of tonnage and imposts within the United States are suspended and discontinued, so far as respects the vessels of Spain and the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in said vessels into the United States from the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, the Philippines, and all other countries belonging to the Crown of Spain, or from any other foreign country5 such suspension to continue so long as the reciprocal exemption of vessels belonging to citizens of the United States and their cargoes shall be continued in the said islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, and the Philippines, and all other Spanish possessions, and no longer.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this twenty-first day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and twelfth.

[seal.]
Grover Cleveland.

By the President:
T. F. Bayard,
Secretary of State.