will grant, as a finality, the concession of our minimum tariff to the colonial products of the United States as well as to Porto Rican coffee. It can not be alleged that there would not be a fair equilibrium between these reciprocal concessions. According to the annexed statements (Nos. VI and VII) the concession of the minimum tariff to those products would represent for the French Treasury a sacrifice amounting, on the average of the years 1905 and 1906, to 5,162,580 francs, while the concession of reduced rates to sparkling wines imported into the United States and Porto Rico would, according to the American statistics of 1904-5 and 1905-6, represent a sacrifice of only 3,752,228 francs for the United States. The United States would thus profit by a difference of 1,410,352 francs in reduced duties.

Apart from this advantage and in its desire to evidence its appreciation of the value of the customs facilities which your excellency was good enough to notify me would be applied to French merchandise, my Government is ready to agree that the French decree of July 7, 1893, now revocable at will, which extends to American petroleum the benefit of the minimum tariff, shall be especially dealt with in one of the stipulations of the contemplated arrangement, whereby the reduction of duty would assume a contractual character and an important advantage would in consequence accrue to the United States. My Government expects in return that the arrangement to be made will guarantee to French commerce, as already agreed upon, the benefit of all customs facilities granted to other nations.

With respect to the various other points mentioned by your excellency, I have the honor, by order of my Government, to submit to you the following remarks: Article V of the draft drawn up by your excellency's direction provides that American products imported by way of a third country shall continue to enjoy the rates of the minimum tariff, if entitled thereto. Thus worded, the stipulation would preclude the application of the bonded warehouse surtax to American products coming to France from European ports. It would further defeat our regulations which deny the benefits of our minimum tariff to merchandise shipped through a country subject to the general tariff. For both these reasons my Government finds it impossible to accept that Article V.

As regards the provisions relative to the sanitary police of domestic animals and to protection against insects, cryptogamous and other noxious vegetables, the French department of agriculture can not admit, as specified in Article IV of the draft, that these questions be settled by means of a convention. That department has always positively refused to assume in a convention any obligation likely to restrict its freedom of action in that special field which involves the responsibility of the minister of agriculture alone. But the principle once accepted, the said department will be quite ready to examine with the greatest benevolence, and a sincere desire to comply with them as far as possible, such applications as may be submitted to it. For instance, it has already decided that salt pork meats from the United States shall, provisionally and while the negotiations entered into with the American Government are carried on, be admitted into France on the presentation of a certificate of the inspector of the Federal Department of Agriculture detailed by the latter to supervise the establishment in which the animals have been slaughtered or the

meats prepared, which certificate shall state that the meats are from sound animals and are fit for consumption. No mention of microscopical inspection shall be required, provided the cases bear the stamp of the Government inspector who conducted the sanitary examination.

The French minister of agriculture, in this connection, has acquainted me with his desire to receive as accurate information as possible regarding the means employed in the United States for the purpose of ascertaining whether pork is free from trichinæ, adding that if the inspection of imported meats should, on their entering France, disclose the presence of trichinæ their importation would forthwith be prohibited.

In compliance with the desire of Mr. Ruau, who is of opinion that if the above-mentioned information were received the sending of a special commission could be dispensed with, I am forwarding to him. an additional copy of the set of the several regulations and successive decisions bearing on the matter which I have been able to gather through the kindness of the Department of Agriculture. Any further explanations that the Federal Government should see fit to send to me would be most welcome and I shall lose no time in forwarding them to the proper French authorities.

As for the measures taken to prevent the introduction_of the Aspidiotus perniciosus, or San José scale, into France, my Government deems it impossible to modify the provisions of the decree of November 30, 1898. Owing to the habits of that insect, the greatest precautions are needful to prevent the transfer of females to vegetables and fruits or their refuse. Cast off indiscriminately with fruit peelings, the insects would soon overrun our orchards and forests, all the more as the young larvæ can live several days without food until they find the vegetable that suits them. American entomologists themselves admit that the strictest precautions must be taken to prevent the propagation of the San José scale, and, without succeeding in entirely checking the evil, the Department of Agriculture recommends that the most particular measures be taken for protection from the Aspidiotus, and that any tree showing traces of infection be burned.

Lastly, I am instructed by my Government to make special mention of the wording of the article in which the American products. admitted to the benefit of the minimum tariff are to be enumerated, and to say that the present language of the French tariff, as it actually stands, describing all those articles, should be reproduced, which does not appear to offer any difficulty, as the differences that can be noted undoubtedly are the result of clerical errors.

The foregoing are the terms on which my Government is ready to sign an arrangement sanctioning the reciprocal concessions the two countries would make in the interest of both, and which might be put into effect, on both parts, without delay. I am fain to believe that the propositions I am instructed to lay before your excellency will prove acceptable and that their early execution will contribute to promote between the two countries a commerce that is already prosperous, thus carrying out the wishes of the Federal Government, which are, I know, identical in this respect with those of the Government of the Republic.

Be pleased to accept, etc.,

JUSSERAND.

Tariff.

1904-5

1905-6

Average for the two years 1904-5 and 1905-6, $3,377, or 17,493 francs.

Average for the two years 1904-5 and 1905-6, $2,114.15, or 10,951 francs.

Year 1906.