Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 9, 1891

By the President of the United States of America.

a proclamation.

Whereas pursuant to section 3 of the act of Congress approved October 1, 1890, entitled “An act to reduce the revenue and equalize duties on imports, and for other purposes,” the Secretary of State of the United States of America communicated to the Government of the United States of Brazil the action of the Congress of the United States of America, with a view to secure reciprocal trade, in declaring the articles enumerated in said section 3, to wit, sugars, molasses, coffee, and hides, to be exempt from duty upon their importation into the United States of America;

And whereas the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Brazil at Washington has communicated to the Secretary of State the fact that, in due reciprocity for and consideration of the admission into the United States of America free of all duty of the articles enumerated in section 3 of said act, the Government of Brazil has, by legal enactment, authorized the admission, from and after April 1, 1891, into all the established ports of entry of Brazil, free of all duty, whether national, state, or municipal, of the articles or merchandise named in the following schedule, provided that the same be the product and manufacture of the United States of America:

1.—schedule of articles to be admitted free into brazil.

Wheat;

Wheat-flour;

Corn or maize, and the manufactures thereof, including corn meal and starch;

Bye, rye-flour, buckwheat, buckwheat-flour, and barley;

Potatoes, beans, and peas;

Hay and oats;

Pork, salted, including pickled pork and bacon, except hams;

Fish, salted, dried, or pickled;

Cotton-seed oil;

Coal, anthracite and bituminous;

Rosin, tar, pitch, and turpentine;

Agricultural tools, implements, and machinery;

Mining and mechanical tools, implements, and machinery, including stationary and portable engines, and all machinery for manufacturing and industrial purposes, except sewing-machines;

Instruments and books for the arts and sciences;

Railway construction material and equipment.

And that the Government of Brazil has, by legal enactment, further authorized the admission into all the established ports of entry of Brazil, with a reduction of twenty-five per centum of the duty designated on the respective article in the tariff now in force or which may hereafter be adopted in the United States of Brazil, whether national, state, or municipal, of the articles or merchandise named in the following schedule, provided that the same be the product or manufacture of the United States of America:

2.—schedule of articles to be admitted into brazil with a reduction of duty of twenty-five per centum.

Lard and substitutes therefor;

Bacon hams;

Butter and cheese;

Canned and preserved meats, fish, fruits, and vegetables;

Manufactures of cotton, including cotton clothing;

Manufactures of iron and steel, single or mixed, not included in the foregoing free schedule;

Leather and the manufactures thereof, except boots and shoes;

Lumber, timber, and the manufactures of wood, including cooperage, furniture of all kinds, wagons, carts, and carriages;

Manufactures of rubber.

And that the Government of Brazil has further provided that the laws and regulations, adopted to protect its revenue and prevent fraud in the declarations and proof that the articles named in the foregoing schedules are the product or manufacture of the United States of America, shall place no undue restrictions on the importer, nor impose any additional charges or fees therefor on the articles imported.

And whereas the Secretary of State has, by my direction, given assurance to the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Brazil at Washington that this action of the Government of Brazil in granting exemption of duties to the products and manufactures of the United States of America is accepted as a due reciprocity for the action of Congress, as set forth in section 3 of said act:

Now, therefore, be it known that I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States of America, have caused the above stated modifications of the tariff law of Brazil to be made public for the information of the citizens of the United States of America.

In testimony 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 fifth day of February, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-one, and of the independence of the United States of America the one hundred and fifteenth.

[seal.]

Benj. Harrison.

By the President:
James G. Blaine,
Secretary of State.