Mr. Hay to Mr. Tower.
Washington, July 19, 1899.
Sir: Referring to previous correspondence in regard to legislation enacted or proposed to be enacted in various States of the Union [Page 348] unfavorable to foreign insurance companies, and with reference particularly to the suggested negotiation of a treaty between the United States and Great Britain on the subject, with the view of averting the injury with which British insurance companies are threatened by discriminatory legislation on the part of several of the United States, I have the honor to say that the negotiation of such treaty would probably be futile on account of the many difficulties and obstacles which it would be likely to encounter from the indisposition of the people of the United States to suffer encroachment upon the ordinary and constitutional exercise of the legislative functions of the respective States by the making of treaties which are passed on by only one branch of the Federal Congress but which have the force of the supreme law. The fact that such treaties were made with Switzerland and Belgium could hardly be considered as a precedent for such enactment of law in the form of a treaty with nations having the great commercial interests of Great Britain. However much I might be pleased to respond affirmatively to your request, yet in the light of all the circumstances and of the vigilance with which any apparently important invasion of the rights of the States to regulate their own domestic concerns is guarded against, I am persuaded that such treaty, if negotiated, would fail of ratification by the Senate.
For these reasons the proposed negotiation would, in my judgment, be fruitless, even if such a treaty could be agreed upon and submitted to the Senate.
I have, etc.,