711.572/58
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Norway (Swenson)
Sir: With reference to your despatch No. 980 of April 25, 1927,10 the Department desires that you bring informally to the attention of the Norwegian Foreign Office that it is the earnest desire of this Government to proceed promptly to the completion of the negotiations of the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Consular Rights which are in progress.
The purpose of this Government to substitute treaties containing unconditional most favored nation clauses in respect of commerce for [Page 600] those of its treaties resting on the conditional most favored nation principle as promptly as arrangements to that effect can be made with foreign countries, is, in respect of its treaty relations with Norway, given a further impulse by the situation hereinafter set forth.
Under Acts of Congress of June 26, 1884, Section 1411 and August 5, 1909, Section 36,12 a tonnage duty of two cents per ton, not to exceed in the aggregate ten cents per ton in any one year, is imposed at each entry on all vessels engaged in trade which enter any port of the United States from any foreign port or place in North America, Central America, the West India Islands, the Bahama Islands, the Bermuda Islands, or the coast of South America bordering on the Caribbean Sea, or Newfoundland, and a duty of six cents per ton, not to exceed thirty cents per ton per annum, is imposed at each entry on all vessels engaged in trade which enter in any port of the United States from any foreign port in countries other than those mentioned.
Article VIII of the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation of 1827 between the United States and Sweden and Norway is as follows:
“The two high contracting parties engage not to impose upon the navigation between their respective territories, in the vessels of either, any tonnage or other duties, of any kind or denomination, which shall be higher or other than those which shall be imposed on every other navigation except that which they have reserved to themselves, respectively, by the sixth article of the present treaty.”
(Malloy’s Treaties, Conventions etc., Vol. 2, pp. 1748, 1751).
The reservation made in Article VI relates to the coastwise navigation of the respective countries and is not pertinent to the subject matter of this instruction.
Norwegian and American vessels arriving in ports of the United States from Norway have for many years enjoyed the benefit of the two-cent tonnage rate provided in the Acts of Congress referred to above, the provisions of the Acts having been applied in the light of Article VIII of the Treaty, so as not to impose a higher tonnage duty on navigation between Sweden and Norway and the United States in Swedish, Norwegian and American vessels than on navigation between the countries of the Western Hemisphere mentioned in the Acts and the United States. As the treaty was terminated as between Sweden and the United States February 4, 1919,13 the navigation from Norway by vessels of Norway and the United States is the only exception now in force to the collection of the duty at the rate of six cents per ton on vessels of any nation arriving in the [Page 601] United States from countries other than those of the Western Hemisphere mentioned in the Acts of Congress. The situation as so far stated is well known to the Norwegian Government.
The Government of Denmark has demanded of the United States that in virtue of the most favored nation agreements in regard to commerce and navigation contained in Articles I and III of the Convention of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation of 1826, between the United States and Denmark14 (Malloy’s Treaties, Conventions, etc., vol. I, page[s] 373, 374). Danish vessels arriving in the United States from Danish ports shall be granted the favor accorded Norwegian vessels arriving from ports in Norway and shall be allowed to pay this tonnage duty at the rate of two cents per ton instead of six cents per ton.15
No agreement has yet been reached by this Government and the Government of Denmark as to the correct interpretation of the Articles of the treaty of 1826 on which the Government of Denmark relies. As it is apparent that the preferential rate of tonnage duty in effect in behalf of navigation from Norway to the United States in Norwegian and American vessels as compared with navigation from Denmark to the United States in Danish vessels, and with other navigation to which the two cent rate is not expressly accorded by the Acts of Congress, is an exception to the policy of those Acts, this Government desires to have that special privilege discontinued at the earliest possible moment. Such discontinuance can be most conveniently effected by the replacement of the Treaty of 1827 between the United States and Norway, by the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Consular Rights now under negotiation, the draft of which does not contain a provision relating to navigation similar to the one in the Treaty of 1827, which is the basis of the demand which has been made by the Government of Denmark.
The Department desires that, without mentioning the name of the country which has made the demand hereinabove mentioned, you bring the situation informally to the attention of the Norwegian Foreign Office. State to the Foreign Office that it is the desire of this Government to proceed promptly with further negotiations on the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Consular Rights and to bring these negotiations rapidly to a conclusion and that it will be gratifying to this Government if the Government of Norway is in a position to cooperate to this end. Informally advise the Foreign Office that unless the progress of negotiations by December of this year, indicates that the new treaty will be concluded and made effective within a short time thereafter, this Government will be constrained to consider whether the discontinuance of the special advantage accorded under Article [Page 602] VIII to navigation between Norway and the United States in Norwegian and American vessels is of sufficient urgency to require it to give notification of its intention to arrest the operation of that Treaty, pursuant to the provision with respect to such notification contained in Article XIX thereof.
It is hoped that it will be clearly recognized by the Government of Norway that in intimating the intention to terminate the Treaty of 1827, this Government is actuated by no uncordial motive directed against the Government of Norway, or the shipping of that country, but that it is actuated solely by the purpose of effecting the discontinuance of a special advantage inconsistent with the provisions of the Acts of Congress, the benefit of which already has been demanded by one other country under the most favored nation clause of a treaty in force, and which likewise may be demanded by other countries similarly situated. The impartiality of the purpose of this Government is obvious when it is considered that the discontinuance of the special advantage to navigation stipulated in Article VIII of the Treaty of 1827 will extend to American vessels entering ports of the United States from Norway as well as to Norwegian vessels and that after such discontinuance the six cent rate of tonnage duty prescribed by the Acts of Congress will apply in equal measure to the vessels of both countries.
I am [etc.]
- Not printed.↩
- 23 Stat. 53, 57.↩
- 36 Stat. 11, 111.↩
- See Foreign Relations, 1919, vol. i, pp. 67 ff.↩
- Miller, Treaties, vol. 3, p. 239.↩
- See vol. ii, pp. 722 ff.↩