File No. 18659/62.
The Acting Secretary of State to the French Chargé.
Washington, October 8, 1909.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 18th1 ultimo, referring to your previous notes of August 25 and August 28, last, relative to the termination of the existing commercial agreement between the United States and France and the application of the provisions of the new tariff act of the United States.
In your note of August 25, 1909, you inquire, on behalf of your Government, whether the President of the United States has not some constitutional means of postponing until the extreme expiration date of the commercial agreements between the United States and other countries the enforcement of the duties in the new tariff against the imports from France, which are now admitted under the benefit of section 3 of the Dingley tariff law.
In reply I have the honor to inform you that the question which you raise has been given most careful consideration, and the conclusion reached is that there is no constitutional means available to the President of extending the operation of the provisions of the commerial agreements between the United States and France after October 31, 1909. As you were informed in the department’s note of August 23, 1909, in response to your note of August 10, the President of the United States, in the giving of the formal notice on August 7, 1909, was obliged to follow implicitly the prescriptions of section 4 of the new tariff act of the United States, which specifically provided for the continuance in force of those agreements which contain no stipulations in regard to their termination by diplomatic action until the expiration of six months from April 30, 1909; that is, until October 31, 1909. The Congress having changed the legislative bases upon which the commercial agreements in question were predicted and there being no longer any legal authority vested in the President by Congress for the conclusion of commercial agreements reducing the duties on imports into the United States and not requiring the concurrence of the Senate of the United States, the department finds itself unable to suggest any means of prolonging the commercial agreements between the United States and France after October 31, 1909.
Accept, etc.,
- Not printed.↩