Eighth. The Governments reserve the right to reject all bids if, in their judgment, they should be excessive. Ninth. The States shall have the right to impose their flag and register upon the vessels to a number proportionate to the percentage of the aid they pay. In that case it is understood that the quota of each nation shall be paid directly to the vessel or vessels carrying its flag. In case of war, each State may use as transports and arm as cruisers, upon payment therefor, the vessels carrying its flag. Tenth. The vessels receiving Government aid, whatever flag they may carry, shall enjoy in the ports of the contracting Governments all the rights and privileges accorded to national vessels for the sole purpose of international commerce, but not including rights to coastwise trade. Eleventh.-The contracting Governments shall contribute aid to the fast line in the following proportion: Twelfth.—The contracting States shall accept only vessels constructed in the United States, in consideration of the higher aid paid by that Government. Thirteenth. The term of the contract shall be ten years. Fourteenth.-The committee recommends to the Governments interested the encouragement of direct cable lines to connect the countries represented in said committee with regular service and equitable rates. Fifteenth.-The Republic of Bolivia and of Paraguay hereby agree to the plan of the committee, and will contribute to the payment on condition that the companies agree to establish subsidiary lines of river navigation that shall reach their ports. T. JEFFERSON COOLIDGE. DISCUSSION. SESSION OF MARCH 24, 1890. The PRESIDENT. Is the Conference ready for the consideration of the report of the Committee on Communication on the Atlantic? REMARKS OF MR. SAENZ PEÑA. Mr. SAENZ PEÑA. I should make some explanations to the honorable Conference in the name of the Committee on Communication on the Atlantic, of which I have the honor to be chairman. It will be observed that the signature of Mr. Laforestrie does not appear on the report. It is well known that our esteemed colleague was compelled to leave the Conference and return to his country because of ill health; but he had time to take part in the sessions of our committee, aiding it with his intelligence and his labor, and I believe I express the sentiment of all my colleagues when I make this declaration of proper acknowledgment of his services. Upon distributing the quota of the subsidy which each. State should pay to the lines to be created we have assigned 5 per cent. to the Republic of Uruguay, and, as that is the only nation interested whose representative has not signed the report, I should state that Mr. Nin was invited to take part in the meetings of the committee, and he indicated that his country would be willing to contribute in that proportion; and if his signature does not appear in the report it is because the delegate from Uruguay has retired from the Conference. Regarding the last paragraph of the seventh article, I would submit a substitute. The paragraph authorizes the States giving Government aid to use as transports or cruisers, in case of war, the vessels carrying their flags. This provision might be understood to be contrary to the sentiment of fraternity and of peace which animates all and each one of the nations here represented, and this point was raised and sustained in the meetings of the committee by my distinguished friend, the delegate from Paraguay, Dr. Decoud. The committee agreed entirely with the honorable delegate; and if the article was inserted it was due to the fact that in this Conference all the nations with whom we maintain political relations were not represented, and that it was difficult for us to know whether the others would be disposed to disarm themselves and put aside the means of defense offered by the vessels which will plow the seas under the national flag; but the Committees of the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea have resolved the problem as against this belligerent reservation, and that over which I have the honor to preside accepts those conclusions. I ask, then, that the paragraph to which I refer be substituted by the following: In case of war the vessels carrying the flag of one of the belligerents shall be registered in another of the contracting States, which shall maintain itself neutral. To these explanations, made as chairman of the Committee on the Atlantic, I should add a few more, not in this character, however, but as the representative of my Government. From the very beginning of the debates in the committee I took occasion to declare that the Argentine Government, while it agreed to the subsidizing of these lines, was not moved to it by commercial interests for reasons which are not unknown to my honorable colleagues. Our com. merce with the United States is most limited; the Argentine ports send to New York only $5,000,000 for $10,000,000 which New York exports to Buenos Ayres. This is not commerce for either of the nations, but the figures serve to indicate the relative interest which animates the two Governments in the subsidy. The cause of this situation I have gone into exhaustively in my remarks on the Customs Union, and I deem it unnecessary to repeat them; the Argentine Republic can not bring to these markets more than wool and hides; but fine wools such as are ours have a duty of 60 per cent., and consequently only our mixed wool can enter, which has neither weight nor value, and which is about to disappear because of improvements in the breeds. The wool which we introduce into the United States represents $908,000 on a production of $46,000,000, and the hides introduced represents $3,750,000 on an annual exportation of $23,000,000. These figures reveal the depression which marks our commercial relations with the United States, and I do not believe that vessels are the agents to be employed to remove the obstruction; nor does the Argentine Government believe that maritime communication is going to re-establish custom-house relations; but it seeks and hopes for intimacy and firmer bonds with all the nations of America, and to attain such a generous end it will not economize sacrifices. By binding its ports to those of Rio Janeiro and New York it realizes an act of friendly significance which its delegation obeys and is ready to sustain. This is the true inwardness of my signature at the end of this report; we shall not vote it, however, without an explanation, which should be noted by the Secretaries. The honorable delegates can not be ignorant of the fact that in these moments there exists at the Capitol a tariff bill which has seen the public light and has been discussed by all the national press, notwithstanding the fact that it is as yet in the Committee on Ways and Means, where it originated; this bill increases the duty on wool 14 cents per pound, and also increases 14 cents that on hides, which were before free. If that bill becomes a law Argentine importations will be unknown in the customhouses of North America. Hides and wool are the only products which we bring, and they will go to Europe in search of free markets. If the tariff was already prohibitory on fine wools it will be to-morrow on ordinary wools, and in that case there will be neither extensive nor restricted commerce. I look at the question in a different light. The LatinAmerican Governments must study the moral significanco of this measure in its relation to the courteous invitation which has called us together. It is not the Argentine delegates alone who find themselves embarrassed by this act; it affects the interests of all the Governments represented in this Conference, as I can prove by the documents of the Treasury itself. See how and in what proportion the Spanish-American States are represented in the importation of hides: There is no necessity to examine the proportion of these importations; it is enough for me to know that this measure has the effect on all and each of the Spanish-American delegations to lead them to the perfectly justifiable belief that the commercial purposes of this Congress have been contra producentes, and that their dispositions and their attitudes have not been met with reciprocity. We have been called to encourage American commercial relations, and when we shall return to our country to give an account of our laborious mission we shall be forced to say our Government, "We went to Washington with a product on the free list, and we have obtained a law which burdens it with a duty; another product was taxed at six, but when the Conference was over we found it taxed at seven per cent." to Such will be the commercial outcome of the Conference of the three Americas, judged without irony but also without admiration. Would it be logical, sensible, and explicable for us to make pecuniary sacrifices and to people the seas with vessels in ballast when such a tariff situation confronts us? Would the union of our ports be justified at the same time that the disunion of our custom-houses is decreed? To what end would we create means of transportation |