s, and not rest content with any secondary place. Moreover,
if this be due to ourselves, it is no less due to the great French
nation whose guests we become, and which has in so many ways testified
its wish and hope that our participation shall befit the place the two
peoples have won in the field of universal development.

The commercial arrangement made with France on the 28th of May, 1898,
under the provisions of section 3 of the tariff act of 1897, went into
effect on the 1st day of June following. It has relieved a portion of
our export trade from serious embarrassment. Further negotiations
are now pending under section 4 of the same act with a view to the
increase of trade between the two countries to their mutual advantage.
Negotiations with other governments, in part interrupted by the war with
Spain, are in progress under both sections of the tariff act. I hope to
be able to announce some of the results of these negotiations during the
present session of Congress.

Negotiations to the same end with Germany have been set on foot.
Meanwhile no effort has been relaxed to convince the Imperial Government
of the thoroughness of our inspection of pork products for exportation,
and it is trusted that the efficient administration of this measure by
the Department of Agriculture will be recognized as a guaranty of the
healthfulness of the food staples we send abroad to countries where
their use is large and necessary.

I transmitted to the Senate on the 10th of February last information
touching the prohibition against the importation of fresh fruits from
this country, which had then recently been decreed by Germany on the
ground of danger of disseminating the San Jose scale insect. This
precautionary measure was justified by Germany on the score of the
drastic steps taken in several States of the Union against the spread of
the pest, the elaborate reports of the Department of Agriculture being
put in evidence to show the danger to German fruit-growing interests
should the scale obtain a lodgment in that country. Temporary relief was
afforded in the case of large consignments of fruit then on the way by
inspection and admission when found noninfected. Later the prohibition
was extended to dried fruits of every kind, but was relaxed so as to
apply only to unpeeled fruit and fruit waste. As was to be expected, the
alarm reached to other countries, and Switzerland has adopted a similar
inhibition. Efforts are in progress