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2. On vessels in ballast without passengers or cargo, forty (40) per cent less than the rate of tolls for vessels with passengers or cargo.

3. Upon naval vessels, other than transports, colliers, hospital ships, and supply ships, fifty (50) cents per displacement ton.

4. Upon army and navy transports, colliers, hospital ships, and supply ships, one dollar and twenty cents ($1.20) per net ton, the vessel to be measured by the same rules as are employed in determining the net tonnage of merchant vessels.

The Secretary of War will prepare and prescribe such rules for the measurement of vessels and such regulations as may be necessary and proper to carry this proclamation into full force and effect.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this thirteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twelve, and of the independence of the United States the one hundred and thirty-seventh.

[SEAL.]

By the President:
P. C. KNOX,
Secretary of State.

The British Ambassador to the Secretary of State.

WM. H. TAFT.

BRITISH EMBASSY, Washington, February 27, 1913.

SIR: His Majesty's Government are unable before the administration leaves office to reply fully to the arguments contained in your dispatch of the 17th ultimo to the United States chargé d'affaires at London regarding the difference of opinion that has arisen between our two Governments as to the interpretation of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, but they desire me in the meantime to offer the following observations with regard to the argument that no case has yet arisen calling for any submission to arbitration of the points in difference between His Majesty's Government and that of the United States on the interpretation of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, because no actual injury has as yet resulted to any British interest, and all that has been done so far is to pass an act of Congress under which action held by His Majesty's Government to be prejudicial to British interests might be taken.

From this view His Majesty's Government feel bound to express their dissent. They conceive that international law or usage does not support the doctrine that the passing of a statute in contravention of a treaty right affords no ground of complaint for the infraction of that right, and that the nation which holds that its treaty rights have been so infringed or brought into question by a denial that they exist, must, before protesting and seeking a means of determining the point at issue, wait until some further action violating those rights in a concrete instance has been taken, which in the present instance would, according to your argument, seem to mean until tolls have been actually levied upon British vessels from which vessels owned by citizens of the United States have been exempted.

The terms of the proclamation issued by the President fixing the canal tolls, and the particular method which your note sets forth as having been adopted by him, in his discretion, on a given occasion for determining on what basis they should be fixed do not appear to His Majesty's Government to affect the general issue as to the meaning of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty which they have raised. In their view the act of Congress, when it declared that no tolls should be levied on ships engaged in the coasting trade of the United States and when, in further directing the President to fix those tolls within certain limits, it distinguished between vessels of the citizens of the United States and other vessels, was in itself and apart from any action which may be taken under it, inconsistent with the provisions of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty for equality of treatment between the vessels of all nations. The exemption referred to appears to His Majesty's Government to conflict with the express words of rule 1 of article 3 of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, and the act gave the President no power to modify or discontinue the exemption.

In their opinion the mere conferring by Congress of power to fix lower tolls on United States ships than on British ships amounts to a denial of the right of British shipping to equality of treatment, and is therefore inconsistent with the treaty irrespective of the particular way in which such power has been so far actually exercised. In stating thus briefly their view of the compatibility of the act of Congress with their treaty rights His Majesty's Government hold that the difference which exists

between the two Governments is clearly on which falls within the meaning of article 1 of the arbitration treaty of 1908.

As respects the suggestion contained in the last paragraph but one of your note under reply His Majesty's Government conceive that article 1 of the treaty of 1908 so clearly meets the case that has now arisen that it is sufficient to put its provisions in force in whatever manner the two Governments may find the most convenient. It is unnecessary to repeat that a reference to arbitration would be rendered superfluous if steps were taken by the United States Government to remove the objection entertained by His Majesty's Government to the act.

His Majesty's Government have not desired me to argue in this note that the view they take of the main issue-the proper interpretation of the Hay-Pauncefote treatyis the correct view, but only that a case for the determination of that issue has already arisen and now exists. They conceive that the interest of both countries requires that issue to be settled promptly before the opening of the canal, and by means which will leave no ground for regret or complaint. The avoidance of possible friction has been one of the main objects of those methods of arbitration of which the United States has been for so long a foremost and consistent advocate. His Majesty's Government think it more in accordance with the general arbitration treaty that the settlement desired should precede rather than follow the doing of any acts, which could raise questions of actual damage suffered; and better also that when vessels begin to pass through the great waterway in whose construction all the world has been interested there should be left subsisting no cause of difference which could prevent any other nation from joining without reserve in the satisfaction the people of the United States will feel at the completion of a work of such grandeur and utility. I have, etc.,

JAMES BRYCE.

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