Paris during the present month. It is a source of much gratification to
this Government to see the friendly resort of arbitration applied to the
settlement of this controversy, not alone because of the earnest part we
have had in bringing about the result, but also because the two members
named on behalf of Venezuela, Mr. Chief Justice Fuller and Mr. Justice
Brewer, chosen from our highest court, appropriately testify the
continuing interest we feel in the definitive adjustment of the question
according to the strictest rules of justice. The British members,
Lord Herschell and Sir Richard Collins, are jurists of no less exalted
repute, while the fifth member and president of the tribunal, M.F.
De Martens, has earned a world-wide reputation as an authority upon
international law.

The claim of Felipe Scandella against Venezuela for arbitrary expulsion
and injury to his business has been adjusted by the revocation of the
order of expulsion and by the payment of the sum of $16,000.

I have the satisfaction of being able to state that the Bureau of
the American Republics, created in 1890 as the organ for promoting
commercial intercourse and fraternal relations among the countries of
the Western Hemisphere, has become a more efficient instrument of the
wise purposes of its founders, and is receiving the cordial support of
the contributing members of the international union which are actually
represented in its board of management. A commercial directory, in two
volumes, containing a mass of statistical matter descriptive of the
industrial and commercial interests of the various countries, has been
printed in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French, and a monthly
bulletin published in these four languages and distributed in the
Latin-American countries as well as in the United States has proved to
be a valuable medium for disseminating information and furthering the
varied interests of the international union.

During the past year the important work of collecting information of
practical benefit to American industries and trade through the agency
of the diplomatic and consular officers has been steadily advanced, and
in order to lay such data before the public with the least delay the
practice was begun in January, 1898, of issuing the commercial reports
from day to day as they are received by the Department of State. It is
believed that for promptitude as well as fullness of information the
service thus supplied to our