tic relations on the 20th of November, 1899.

* * * * *

The fourth section of the Tariff Act approved July 24, 1897, appears
to provide only for commercial treaties which should be entered into by
the President and also ratified by the Senate within two years from its
passage. Owing to delays inevitable in negotiations of this nature, none
of the treaties initiated under that section could be concluded in time
for ratification by the Senate prior to its adjournment on the 4th of
March last. Some of the pending negotiations, however, were near
conclusion at that time, and the resulting conventions have since been
signed by the plenipotentiaries. Others, within both the third and
fourth sections of the act, are still under consideration. Acting under
the constitutional power of the Executive in respect to treaties,
I have deemed it my duty, while observing the limitations of concession
provided by the fourth section, to bring to a conclusion all pending
negotiations, and submit them to the Senate for its advice and consent.

Conventions of reciprocity have been signed during the Congressional
recess with Great Britain for the respective colonies of British Guiana,
Barbados, Bermuda, Jamaica, and Turks and Caicos Islands, and with the
Republic of Nicaragua.

Important reciprocal conventions have also been concluded with France
and with the Argentine Republic.

In my last annual message the progress noted in the work of the
diplomatic and consular officers in collecting information as to
the industries and commerce of other countries, and in the care and
promptitude with which their reports are printed and distributed, has
continued during the past year, with increasingly valuable results in
suggesting new sources of demand for American products and in pointing
out the obstacles still to be overcome in facilitating the remarkable
expansion of our foreign trade. It will doubtless be gratifying to
Congress to learn that the various agencies of the Department of State
are co-operating in these endeavors with a zeal and effectiveness
which are not only receiving the cordial recognition of our business
interests, but are exciting the emulation of other Governments. In any
rearrangement of the great and complicated work of obtaining official
data of an economic character which Congress may undertake it is most
important, in my judgment, that the results already secured by the
efforts of the De