And whereas, in view of the provisions of said Joint Resolution for the determination by the Congress of the United States of all matters of municipal legislation concerning the Hawaiian Islands, and because the subject matter and provisions of said Indenture are deemed to be proper subjects for the consideration and determination of the Congress of the United States, it is deemed expedient and necessary that the Congress of the United States consider and adopt such legislation, especially in regard to grants and contractual obligations to be controlled by and rest upon the United States of America as vested with sovereignty over said Hawaiian Islands, without let or hindrance by reason of any action of the Government of the Republic of Hawaii in respect to such grants and contractual obligations initiated by the said Government of the Republic of Hawaii prior to and incomplete at the time of the yielding up of the sovereignty of the Hawaiian Islands to the United States;

Now, therefore, I, John Hay, Secretary of State of the United States, do hereby express on the part of “the United States State Department” its disapproval of the contract stipulated in the said Indenture to the end that the same shall not take effect.

[SEAL.]

Given under my hand and the seal of the Department of State of the United States, in the city of Washington, D.C., this thirty-first day of December in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight.

JOHN HAY.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas it is provided by section twenty-four of the act of Congress, approved March third, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, entitled, “An act to repeal timber-culture laws, and for other purposes,” “That the President of the United States may, from time to time, set apart and reserve in any State or Territory having public land bearing forests, in any part of the public lands wholly or in part covered with timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial value or not, as public reservations, and the President shall, by public proclamation, declare the establishment of such reservations and the limits thereof;”

And whereas it is further provided by the act of Congress, approved June fourth, eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, entitled, “An act making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, and for other purposes,” that “The President is hereby authorized at any time to modify any executive order that has been or may hereafter be made establishing any forest reserve, and by such modification may reduce the area or change the boundary lines of such reserve, or may vacate altogether any order creating such reserve;”

And whereas the public lands in the State of California, within the limits hereinafter described, are in part covered with timber, and it appears that the public good would be promoted by setting apart and reserving said lands as a public reservation;