ction of a larger proportion of awards, having regard
to the number and classes of articles entered than those of other
countries. The worth of such a result in making known our national
capacity to supply the world's markets is obvious.

Exhibitions of this international character are becoming more frequent
as the exchanges of commercial countries grow more intimate and varied.
Hardly a year passes that this Government is not invited to national
participation at some important foreign center, but often on too short
notice to permit of recourse to Congress for the power and means to do
so. My predecessors have suggested the advisability of providing by
a general enactment and a standing appropriation for accepting such
invitations and for representation of this country by a commission.
This plan has my cordial approval.

I trust that the Belgian restrictions on the importation of cattle from
the United States, originally adopted as a sanitary precaution, will at
an early day be relaxed as to their present features of hardship and
discrimination, so as to admit live cattle under due regulation of their
slaughter after landing. I am hopeful, too, of favorable change in
the Belgian treatment of our preserved and salted meats. The growth
of direct trade between the two countries, not alone for Belgian
consumption and Belgian products, but by way of transit from and to
other continental states, has been both encouraging and beneficial. No
effort will be spared to enlarge its advantages by seeking the removal
of needless impediments and by arrangements for increased commercial
exchanges.

The year's events in Central America deserve more than passing mention.

A menacing rupture between Costa Rica and Nicaragua was happily composed
by the signature of a convention between the parties, with the
concurrence of the Guatemalan representative as a mediator, the act
being negotiated and signed on board the United States steamer
_Alert_, then lying in Central American waters. It is believed that
the good offices of our envoy and of the commander of that vessel
contributed toward this gratifying outcome.

In my last annual message the situation was presented with respect to
the diplomatic representation of this Government in Central America
created by the association of Nicaragua, Honduras, and Salvador under
the title of the Greater Republic of Central America, and the delegation
of their international functions to the Diet the