condition of the island of Cuba and to negotiations for
commercial relations between the United States and that island, a report
of the Secretary of State, with its accompanying correspondence,
covering the first inquiry of the resolution, together with a report
of the special commissioner plenipotentiary charged with commercial
negotiations under the provisions of the tariff act approved July 24,
1897, in response to the second inquiry.

WILLIAM McKINLEY.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, _Washington_, _April 11, 1898_.

The PRESIDENT:

The Secretary of State has had the honor to receive, by reference from
the President, a resolution adopted in the Senate of the United States
on the 14th of February last, reading as follows:

"_Resolved,_ That the President is requested, if in his opinion it
is not incompatible with the public service, to send to the Senate
copies of the reports of the consul-general and of the consuls of the
United States in Cuba written or received since March 4, 1897, which
relate to the state of war in that island and the condition of the
people there, or that he will send such parts of said reports as will
inform the Senate as to these facts.

"Second. That the President inform the Senate whether any agent of a
government in Cuba has been accredited to this Government or the
President of the United States with authority to negotiate a treaty of
reciprocity with the United States, or any other diplomatic or
commercial agreement with the United States, and whether such person has
been recognized and received as the representative of such government in
Cuba."

This resolution contemplates answer being made to two separable
inquiries: First, in relation to the present condition of affairs in
Cuba, and, secondly, with regard to the action had in view of the
overtures of the Government of Spain for a reciprocal commercial
agreement covering particularly the trade between the United States and
the island of Cuba.

The conduct of commercial negotiations under the authority and in
accordance with the conditions found in sections 3, 4, and 5 of the
existing tariff act, approved July 24, 1897, having been intrusted to a
special commissioner plenipotentiary duly empowered by the President to
that end, it has been deemed convenient to leave to the commissioner the
preparation of a report in answer to the second part of the Senate
resolution, the undersigned reserving to himself the response to the
first pa