ate results have been most gratifying. If this policy and
these trade arrangements can be continued in force and aided by the
establishment of American steamship lines, I do not doubt that we shall
within a short period secure fully one-third of the total trade of the
countries of Central and South America, which now amounts to about
$600,000,000 annually. In 1885 we had only 8 per cent of this trade.

The following statistics show the increase in our trade with the
countries with which we have reciprocal trade agreements from the date
when such agreements went into effect up to September 30, 1892, the
increase being in some almost wholly and in others in an important
degree the result of these agreements:

The domestic exports to Germany and Austria-Hungary have increased in
value from $47,673,756 to $57,993,064, an increase of $10,319,308, or
21.63 per cent. With American countries the value of our exports has
increased from $44,160,285 to $54,613,598, an increase of $10,453,313,
or 23.67 per cent. The total increase in the value of exports to
all the countries with which we have reciprocity agreements has been
$20,772,621. This increase is chiefly in wheat, flour, meat, and dairy
products and in manufactures of iron and steel and lumber. There has
been a large increase in the value of imports from all these countries
since the commercial agreements went into effect, amounting to
$74,294,525, but it has been entirely in imports from the American
countries, consisting mostly of sugar, coffee, india rubber, and crude
drugs. The alarmed attention of our European competitors for the South
American market has been attracted to this new American policy and to
our acquisition and their loss of South American trade.

A treaty providing for the arbitration of the dispute between Great
Britain and the United States as to the killing of seals in the
Bering Sea was concluded on the 29th of February last. This treaty was
accompanied by an agreement prohibiting pelagic sealing pending the
arbitration, and a vigorous effort was made during this season to drive
out all poaching sealers from the Bering Sea. Six naval vessels, three
revenue cutters, and one vessel from the Fish Commission, all under
the command of Commander Evans, of the Navy, were sent into the sea,
which was systematically patrolled. Some seizures were made, and it is
believed that the catch in the Bering Sea by poachers amounted to less
than 500 seals. It is true,