500.A4/486

The Secretary of State to President Harding

The President: The undersigned the Secretary of State has received from the Senate a resolution adopted on December 11, 1922, reading as follows:

Resolved, That the Secretary of State be, and he is hereby, requested to furnish the Senate information showing to what extent and by what nations the six treaties known as the Armament Conference Treaties, described in Senate Document 124, 67th Congress, 2d Session, have been ratified, and to give the date of ratification in each case by each country.”

In reply the Secretary of State has the honor to report to the President, with a view to the transmission of the information to the Senate, if the President’s judgment approve thereof, as follows:

The Department of State has been notified by the Diplomatic Missions of Great Britain and Japan at Washington that they had received the Instruments of ratification by their Governments of all six of the treaties signed at the Washington Conference on the Limitation of Armament, and that they were prepared to deposit the ratifications with the Government of the United States in conformity with the provisions of the treaties in that regard; and by the Legation of China at Washington that it had received the ratifications by the Government of China of the two treaties to which that Government is a Signatory,—one relating to the treaties and policies to be followed in matters concerning China and the other relating to the Chinese Customs Tariff, and that that Legation was also prepared to deposit the Instruments of ratification. The date of the ratifications of Japan is stated to be August 5, 1922, and that of the ratifications of China, April 29, 1922. The Department is not informed of the date of the British Instruments of ratification, but the information regarding the receipt of the Instruments by the British Embassy and that Embassy’s [Page 384] readiness to deposit the ratifications was furnished to the Department on August 24, 1922.

The Department of State is not informed that any of the treaties has been ratified by any of the other Signatory Powers.

Respectfully submitted,

Charles E. Hughes