The Spanish Minister to the Secretary of State.
Washington, February 20, 1909.
Mr. Secretary: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of this date, in which, while advising me that in order to meet the wishes of your Government in the matter of the extension to Spain of the authorized reduction in the tariff duties of the United States on Spanish sparkling wines, and in order to remove any possible ground for the exercise by my Government of the right under Article III of the commercial agreement signed between the two countries on August 1, 1906, to rescind any of its concessions made therein to the United States, you also informed me that the President of the United States deemed the concession made by Spain in favor of the products and manufactures of the United States as reciprocal and equivalent to the grant by the Government of the United States of the reduced duties on all articles of Spanish production and exportation enumerated in section 3 of the tariff act of July 24, 1897, [Page 546] will issue his proclamation suspending the present duties on sparkling wines produced in or exported from Spain and substituting therefor the reduced duties authorized by section 3 of the Dingley law. I thank your excellency for the proposed action which you were pleased to make known to me and I agree in every particular of the way suggested by your excellency for this additional part of the agreement of August 1, 1906. I avail myself of this occasion to reiterate to your excellency the assurance of my highest consideration.