Mr. Cambon to Mr. Day.
Washington , June 9, 1898 .
Mr. Secretary of State: I have the honor to inform you that the question has been raised at the New York custom-house whether cordials or spirits, other than brandy, should be admitted, in virtue of the President’s proclamation of the 30th ultimo, on payment of the reduced duty of $1.75, provided for in section 3 of the American tariff of 1897. The Hon. John A. Kasson, special commissioner plenipotentiary, and the Hon. William D. Howell, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, having been consulted on this point, have, in reply, informed the interested parties that, in their opinion, the commercial arrangement concluded with France May 28, 1898, does not extend to the spirits enumerated in article 292 of the tariff.
As this opinion is wholly at variance with the evident meaning of the preliminary work of our arrangement, I addressed to the Hon. Mr. Kasson, on the 4th instant, a note whereby I called his attention to the fact that paragraph 292 of the tariff’ contains, after the words “brandy and other spirits,” the expression “and not specially provided for in this act,” and thus establishes a distinction between brandies and cordials which are enumerated in paragraph 292. This distinction disappears in section 3, which does not reproduce the words “and not specially provided for,” and which, consequently, can not be interpreted otherwise than in the broadest sense. If the wording of section 3 was not to imply that cordials were included, the question might be asked what spirits, other than brandy, it was intended to designate, in our arrangement, by the terms “or spirits manufactured or distilled from [Page 299] grain or other materials.” Moreover, if the sense in which section 3 should be understood had appeared to me to be in the slightest degree doubtful, my hesitation in this regard would have been dispelled by the memorandum which the Hon. Mr. Kasson sent me under date of May 4. He therein estimates at $195,729 the amount of the concession made by the United States to France on brandies and spirits. This amount can not be obtained save by adding the reductions of duties granted on the one hand on brandies and on the other hand on all other spirits; consequently also on cordials, which in American statistics are comprised under the head of “all other spirits.” From this it must be concluded either that Mr. Kasson interpreted section 3 as I did myself—that is to say, as extending to cordials—or that the concession which he offered us, and which secured the adhesion of my Government as regards this article, was not $195,729, as he said in his memorandum of May 4. In reply to my note of June 4 the Hon. Mr. Kasson has just sent me an additional memorandum, in which he takes exception to my conclusions. “The arrangement of May 28,” says he, “was to enumerate and does expressly enumerate, according to the tariff, all the articles on which that arrangement is to have a bearing; that is to say, the articles mentioned, described, and limited in paragraphs 6 (in part only), 289, 295, 296, and 454. These paragraphs make no mention of cordials, concerning which a question has now arisen for the first time.”
Contrarily to the opinion above expressed, the arrangement of May 28 has no bearing upon paragraphs 6, 289, 295, 296, and 454 of the tariff, but it has a bearing upon section 3, the provisions of which it produces word for word. It was in order that this reproduction might be absolutely literal, and not for the obtainment of an additional concession, that Mr. Kasson was requested to insert vermuth in the provision relative to still wines, he having omitted vermuth in his draft. I even called his attention to the fact that this article interested the commerce of Italy more than it did that of France. Now, the provision of section 3 relative to brandies and spirits is not, as I have above remarked, couched in the same terms as paragraph 289 of the tariff. It is necessarily applicable to all spirits, cordials included, since the reservation “and not specially provided for,” which has reference to the productions enumerated in paragraph 292, is not therein reproduced.
It is precisely because this text had so general a sense that in the course of the negotiations no special mention was made of cordials. There was no necessity, in fact, for the distinct statement that “cordials” were included in a provision which, independently of brandies, comprises, without providing for any exception, as does paragraph 289 of the tariff, “other spirits manufactured or distilled from grain or other materials.”
Under these circumstances my surprise, when I learned the exception made by the Treasury Department, was at least equal to that which the Hon. Mr. Kasson tells me he experienced when he received my complaint of June 4, which he qualifies as a “new demand,” whereas it is but a logical corollary of the preliminary note exchanged in the course of the negotiations and of the very text of our arrangement of May 28.
I consequently have the honor to beg you to be pleased to secure from the Treasury Department a decision in harmony with the foregoing considerations.
Be pleased to accept, etc.,