File No. 5869/224.
The Acting Secretary of State to the French Chargé.
Washington, August 23, 1909.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 10th instant, relative to the termination of the three existing commercial agreements between the United States and France, signed on May 28, 1898, August 20, 1902, and January 28, 1908, respectively. Your Government desires to know the reasons for the differential treatment on the part of the United States as respects the dates of termination of the commercial agreements with France and those with certain other countries of Europe.
In reply I have the honor to remind you that these commercial agreements, not being treaties in the constitutional sense, and hence not requiring the concurrence of the Senate of the United States, but having been negotiated under the authority of and in accordance with the legislative provisions contained in section 3 of the tariff act of July 24, 1897, would, in the absence of enabling legislation by Congress, have been terminated ipso facto on the going into effect of the tariff act of the United States approved August 5, 1909, which has changed the bases on which these agreements were negotiated. In order, however, to avoid the abrupt termination of these international compacts, the Congress adopted the provisions contained in section 4 of the new tariff act. It was deemed proper that the stipulations in regard to termination by diplomatic action contained in certain of the commercial agreements should be observed faithfully in every case. This, of course, involved the giving of six months prior notice of the intention to terminate the agreements in force with two countries of Europe and of one year’s prior notice in the case of the agreements with four other countries of Europe. Inasmuch as the agreements with France, Switzerland, and Bulgaria contain no stipulations in regard to their termination by diplomatic action, it was deemed proper by the Congress of the United States that these agreements should not be terminated abruptly, but should be continued in force until the expiration of six months from April 30, 1909, the date when the foreign Governments concerned were formally notified by the Government of the United States of the intended termination of the commercial agreements under the Dingley tariff. This provision by the Congress has afforded a delay of nearly three months following the passage of the tariff act before the agreements with France shall be terminated. As you are aware, the President of the United States, in the giving of the formal notices on August 7, 1909, has been obliged to follow implicitly the prescriptions of the new tariff act of the United States.
As an evidence that the Congress of the United States intended no discrimination against France in the provisions of section 4 of the [Page 252] new tariff act, the fact may be cited that the commercial arrangements between the United States on the one hand and Switzerland and Bulgaria on the other hand, which will be terminated on the same date as the commercial agreements with France, namely, on October 31, 1909, guarantee to the commerce of the United States during the continuance in force of these arrangements the unqualified enjoyment of the complete conventional tariffs of Switzerland and Bulgaria; in other words, the tariff treatment of the most favored nation for all importations into those countries from the United States.
Accept, etc.,