File No. 12515/2.
The Secretary of State to the Belgian Minister.
Washington, February 13, 1909.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 3d instant inquiring whether the United States interprets the law of April 30, 1900, “to provide a government for the Territory of Hawaii,” to mean that commercial conventions concluded by the United States with foreign powers have been applicable as a matter of course to the Hawaiian Islands since 1900.
In reply I have the honor to say that all treaties, including commercial conventions, between the United States and foreign powers were made applicable to the Hawaiian Islands not by the act of April 30, 1900, but by the joint resolution of July 7, 1898, two copies of which I inclose herewith.
Paragraph four of this joint resolution abrogates the existing treaties of Hawaii and substitutes therefor such treaties as may exist or as may be afterwards concluded between the United States and foreign powers.
Accept, etc.,
[SEE ALSO KONGO, P. 400.]