subcommittee had decided to propose to the committee the imposition of duties on hides and lead ores and the increasing of duties on wool, and afterwards it was asserted that it had decided not to accept these alterations.

I think, moreover, in view of the conflicting interests existing in this country regarding the economic question, that whatever the efforts of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives be to propose a bill acceptable to the party in power, it will not succeed in obtaining legislative sanction by reason of the determined. opposition which it will meet on the part of the minority, which is certainly very respectable.

I may claim the floor again before the vote is taken on the report under discussion, should I think it necessary to make other corrections in view of what may be said in the future in the course of this debate.

SESSION OF APRIL 2, 1890.

Mr. HENDERSON. Mr. President, I move that the Conference now proceed to the consideration of the report of the Committee on Customs Union.

The PRESIDENT. The honorable Delegate from the United States, Mr. Henderson, moves that the Conference now proceed to consider the report of the Committee on Customs Union.

Mr. SAENZ PEÑA. I ask that the Conference pass upon the suggestion of the Hon. Mr. Henderson that this subject be now considered. As I have stated, I am ready to proceed if the Conference desires to hear

me.

The PRESIDENT. That will be at the pleasure of the honorable Delegate himself.

Mr. SAENZ PEÑA. I have no objection.

REMARKS OF MR. SAENZ PEÑA.

Mr. PRESIDENT, HONORABLE DELEGATES:

In the session of the 15th of last month I expressed at length my views upon our present and future trade. The able speeches to which I have the honor to reply have not affected these views, and I need not fortify or repeat them. I shall consider the remarks addressed to me, commencing with those of Mr. Flint. It will be remembered that I did not correct the statement of Mr. Flint when he told us that 80 per cent. of the articles coming from Central and South America were admitted into the United States free of duty. I said in so many words that, without correcting those figures, I was ignorant of what was intended to be proved by them; and I frankly confess I am still in ignorance. These figures show me what comes in, but do not demonstrate what might come in. It is clear that the greater part of the importations enter free, but how many are the products of Central and South America which go to European custom-houses dodging the American tariff? These are the statistics we should study, considering all the elements, all the factors, and not fragments altered by an optimism foreign to our functions and our mission. The honorable Delegate is attracted by the exemption from duties of 80 per cent. of the importations, and I am surprised it is not 100 per cent.; because it is evident that after necessity, exemption from duty is what attracts the article, while a tariff turns it away, directing it towards other ports in search of the privileges here denied it.

The honorable Delegate takes as a basis a depressed commerce, and upon this argument it is clear one may go to great extremes. If to-morrow a duty of 90 per cent. were put upon the products of America, and but one article. were admitted free, gutta-percha, for instance, could not the honorable Delegate tell us that we had reached the climax of exemption, because all that entered was admitted free of duty? Would we not have realized the economic ideals of Mr. Flint, having reached 100 per cent. of exemption upon what enters? The argument of my honorable friend embodies, as Bastiat says, "what is seen and what is unseen." He sees what enters, I wish to see what enters

and what can not enter; and it will not be denied that 80 per cent. of the exportations of Latin America do not enter. I do not pretend that the nation which the honorable Delegate so worthily represents should buy all our products. Such pretensions should not dwell in a well-balanced mind; but treating of increasing our trade, we must of necessity analyze it in the light of figures and not of maxims as arbitrary as those presented by the provisions of a tariff, measuring the exemption on what is imported which might be only one article, as is the case with coffee, which represents $67,742,586 of the imports of Central and South America out of the total of $100,000,000 admitted free.

When my honorable friend measures the liberality of his tariffs upon the basis of the articles imported, he reminds me of the grand master of a mansion who was surprised that eighty out of the hundred guests who filled his rooms were there with his consent and by invitation; the eighty invited guests would not surprise me, but rather the twenty intruders, and if the host desired to prove his great prestige in the neighborhood, I should like to know the number of those excluded from that ostentatious hospitality.

The statistics of my honorable friend verify those which I presented. I was the first to announce that the balance was in our favor and that it was just and proper that the United States should seek an equilibrium, even if we differed in the means. There is one statement, however, which I have not been able to verify, and it is that which refers to the articles which the United States exports to our markets free of duty; according to Mr. Flint, of the $52,000,000 exported we only admit 10 per cent. free.

Criticising our customs laws, Mr. Flint again argues from the stand-point of dutiable and free articles, but entirely disregards the amount of the duties, and I have cited two heavy American importations taxed at 6 and 10 per cent.; but this is not a tax, and such duty would signify but little if it were imposed on all the importations. I stated that our countries tax importations to the extent of the necessities of the revenue, and that the duty falls especially on articles of luxury, but not in a prohibitory

way, nor with a protective spirit, and it is not strange then that the greater part of what we import should provide a revenue which has no surplus and which is indispensable to the demands of our national existence. When I spoke of the ease with which we could take off certain duties, I referred to our trade with America, which is very limited, but by no means to our general commerce. I beg my honorable friend to recall the occasion which brought forth that assertion and he will observe that two statements entirely distinct can not be confounded. It will be difficult for Mr. Flint to prove that the duties imposed on articles in the United States are in keeping with those imposed by us, and there is not rhetoric enough to conceal the disadvantages under which the importations from Latin America are received in the United States. The honorable Delegate tells us that the articles of general commerce subject to duty are taxed on an average of 45 per cent. I have here the statistics to prove that those from Central and South America are subject to a duty of 80 per cent. The nineteenth page of the report (1889) authorized by the Treasury Department shows as follows:

Central America:

Imports dutiable.
Duties......

South America:

Imports dutiable........
Duties..

$293, 065 233,675

11,880, 490 9.359, 403

There is no artifice of eloquence here, only figures revealing international commerce, which it is my duty to examine and present to the honorable Conference in compliance with the duties it has imposed on me.

My honorable friend, Mr. Flint, invites me to name one European nation which, buying as much as the United States buys from South America, is more liberal in its tariffs; that is to say, that charges on dutiable goods less than 80 per cent. Speaking of the Argentine Republic, I shall cite Germany, that buys from us $13,000,000, which $13,000,000 are admitted free; Belgium, from whom we buy $11,000,000 and which takes from us $16,000,000; we export to France $27.000.000 and buy only $22,000,000;

from the United States we buy $9,343,056, and they bought of us in 1889 $5,400,000, maintaining a duty of 60 per cent. on Argentine wool, which is our principal product, and which amounts to 263,486,678 pounds sent to those free ports wherein Australia and the Cape of Good Hope can not obtain the 15 per cent. of difference with which they are favored in the custom-houses of America.

Having complied with the request of Mr. Flint to inform him of our commerce with Europe, I have only to thank him for the good will with which he drops figures for the purpose of expressing generous wishes for the prosperity of South America-wishes which I am grateful for and which I reciprocate in the name of the nation I represent. I shall now take up the speech made by the honorable chairman of the United States Delegation.

I should commence by stating that, not being familiar with the statistics of the Continent, and having been forced to examine them under a pressure of time, I did not hear without a start the statement of Mr. Henderson when he told us that my figures were mistaken in some cases and incomplete in others. The honorable Delegate has proven neither one assertion nor the other. This may have been due to his magnanimity, but I am inclined to believe it was owing to my accuracy. In every case I have brought here the books which prove my figures.

The honorable Delegate to whom I am replying not only ascribes to me sentiments which can not be rightfully attributed to me, but he charges me with statements I have not thought of making. Would my distinguished colleague inform me in what part of my speech I made odious comparisons between the United States and Great Britain, maintaining the liberality of the latter and the commercial selfishness of the former?

I would ask the honorable chairman of the American Delegation to show me the page, the paragraph, the phrase where I made a comparison distasteful to any one. He surely can not show it, unless it be where I stated that the British colonies were more favored in this market than the Argentine Republic; a very different thing from what he attributes to me and which I have fully demon563A-13