an international treaty to a uniform rate for all products, manufactured or natural, of our neighbors, for which we have no actual interest in embarrassing the entry on our market in order to protect similar products of our national industry. Let our doors remain wide open, let our legislation offer the most serious, the most real guaranties to all citizens of sister Republics, who, from the north, from the center, or from the south of America, desire to bring to us the example, the benefit of their intelligence and of their mechanical skill, or the help of their capital.

In a word, free trade as far as possible; free trade in favor of those products, the introduction of which would not compromise or retard our industrial evolution; free trade by our own legislation, modifying itself and expanding itself gradually but freely in proportion to the formation of our industrial power, and as soon as we shall have conquered, to use the words of the honorable delegate, Mr. Henderson, the difficulties of the second phase of the development of our public fortunes, and as soon as the inequality has become less apparent and that "unlimited reciprocity" shall have become less visionary.

Therefore I reject entirely the conclusions of the majority report of the committee, and without reserve I take part with the proposition formulated by the minority in these terms: "That an American Customs Union is considered impracticable."

The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT. The debate on the reports on Customs Union will continue.

Mr. ROMERO. I ask the floor merely to make a personal explanation.

I am sorry the honorable Delegate from the Argentine Republic is not present, although what I have to say does not require his presence.

In the speech made by that honorable Delegate on Wednesday last he referred to what I had said on the 15th ultimo, in the first session that this subject was brought up, and he quoted and he quoted some words of a speech

made by me in New York upon the subject of reciprocity treaties, at a banquet given in honor to the delegates to this Conference, on the 20th of December last, by the Spanish-American Commercial Union of that city.

It might appear to persons who have not read that speech, nor the report in full of my remarks, that there is a contradiction between what I expressed in New York and what I said here regarding the majority report of the committee upon this subject. Such contradiction, however, does not exist.

Having represented for some time the Mexican Government at Washington, I have taken special care to study the matters related with the manner of promoting the trade between the two republics, and the result of that study appears in the North American Review of May, 1889, a literary literary publication of the

United States. I examined in that article the Customs Union question, and that of absolute and partial reciprocity, and expressed abstract opinions thereon, identical with those contained in the majority report of the Committee on Customs Union, basing them exactly on the same grounds. I had signed, before expressing my opinion, on behalf of the Mexican Government, a treaty of limited commercial reciprocity, which, although ratified by both governments and its ratifications exchanged, was not carried out, because the House of Representatives failed to enact the necessary act for the purpose.

In the remarks I made in New York I stated that the public opinion of this country, which directs its policy, is not yet ready to adopt the necessary measures to increase its foreign trade, one of them being

the conclusion of reciprocity treaties, and I ventured to say, in view of the manifestations which were then made, it looked as if said opinion was changing. My position on this matter is yet more clearly stated in the following extract of the speech I delivered before this Conference at its session of the 29th of last March, as follows:

* * * For this reason and several others I deem it unnecessary to enumerate, for they are known to all and it would take time to rehearse, I am convinced that the public opinion of the United States is not yet ready to adopt liberal commercial measures with regard to its foreign trade, or even with its sister Republics of this Continent. Notwithstanding this, I do not think for this reason that we should refrain from taking into consideration and making every effort to reach a satisfactory agreement in this respect whenever this Government expresses, as it has in the present case, its desire to reach that result.

* * *

In order that the documents to which I allude should be known by all the members of this Conference, I ask permission to insert, at the end of the minutes of this session, the fragments of the article I published in the North American Review relative to the commercial question, and of the remarks I made at New York on the 20th of last December.

If, as I have already stated, I hold the opinion that partial reciprocity treaties will increase the trade between the American nations and the United States, I do not think there is any contradiction on my part in recommending the conclusion of those treaties, although well acquainted with the obstacles presented therefor by the ultra-protectionist system of this country.

Even though my corrections should, moreover, appear microscopical to the Argentine Delegate, and perhaps they are so, compared with his grandiloquent statements, I feel constrained to make them, and no consideration whatever will make me desist from performing such a duty. To remain silent on a question 'in which my country is so directly interested should be, in my opinion, equivalent to acquiescing to statements which I do not deem as correct.

The speech and the article published in the North American Review are as follows:

THE ANNEXATION OF MEXICO.

[Published in the North American Review, May, 1889,]

*

All thoughts of annexation being discarded, as they are practically now, the wisest policy to be pursued between the United States and Mexico, and one to which all political parties in this country seem now to adhere, would be, in my opinion, so to enlarge the political, social, and commercial relations between the two Republics as to identify them in great commercial and industrial interests, but without diminishing the autonomy, or much less destroying the nationality, of either. That policy would give to the United States a .d to Mexico all the advantages of annexation without any of its drawbacks. Both countries have already practically been made a single postal territory. It is to be hoped that before long their commercial intercourse will grow in such proportion as to make possible and convenient to both something more than commercial reciprocity. Their contiguous territory, closely united by several trunk lines of railroad, will necessarily hasten that result.

For the present, and in all probability for some time to come, commercial reciprocity is all that is needed for the development of trade relations between the two countries. Their territorial contiguity and the steel bands which now connect them require special rules to foster and develop their commercial intercourse somewhat different from those applied to other countries. Reciprocity has, besides, the advantage of allowing the reform of the tariff laws of a country to be made for a compensation to itself and with great benefit to the other country. If, for instance, the United States should decide now, with a view to reduce their revenue, or for any other reason satisfactory to themselves,

to abolish the duty on sugar, as they did some time ago with the duty on coffee, they would gain nothing but a reduction of revenue in case the abolition was extended to all nations, but if it is made only for Mexico, they would receive an ample compensation in favor of their products and manufactures. Besides, reciprocity, as agreed upon with Mexico in the pending treaty, does not restrict in any manner the constitutional power of the Congress of each country to alter at their will their respective revenue laws.

come.

Commercial union presents a great many more difficulties to overIf by commercial union between two countries it is understood that both should have the same tariff laws for the importation of foreign articles, and mutually receive free of duties their own, the difficulty will at once arise about who will make, amend, and repeal such laws? If the Congress of each country simultaneously but independently should do this, it would be very difficult for them to come to an agreement, representing countries with different needs and interests. A joint congress, where both countries should be represented, would be subject to serious objections, besides requiring a modification of the fundamental laws of the two. They would have to be represented as equals, or in proportion to their population or their territorial area. If as equals, the larger might suffer in its interests, and if in proportion to their population or territory, the smaller one would be the sufferer.

But even restricting commercial union to the free importation in each country of the products and manufactures of the other, which measure could properly be called unrestricted reciprocity, keeping both their respective tariffs, issued in accordance with their constitutions, for the products and manufactures of other countries, provision should be made about the way to modify their revenue laws; because if, in the case of American cotton goods, for instance, they would be declared by Mexico free for all other countries, the United States would then cease to derive the advantages of reciprocity; and how would such laws be amended and repealed is a matter very difficult to decide, as in that case it would be necessary to give to either country a voice in the enactment of the laws of the other, and this would hardly be acceptable to any, and would again require the modification of the fundamental laws of both.

The question of commercial union between Mexico and the United States presents such complex problems, that it is more advisable to leave to the needs and exigencies of the future to indicate the way of solving them, and for the present all the interests and needs of both countries would in my opinion be subserved with restricted reciprocity, as the one agreed upon in the pending treaty.

In conclusion. I would express my sincere conviction that the United States desire above all things the increasing prosperity and secure stability of Mexico and of the other Spanish-American powers, and that they are really anxious for closer and more friendly relations.