The fourth section of the Tariff Act approved July 24, 1897, appears to provide only for commercial treaties which should be entered into by the President and also ratified by the Senate within two years from its passage.  Owing to delays inevitable in negotiations of this nature, none of the treaties initiated under that section could be concluded in time for ratification by the Senate prior to its adjournment on the 4th of March last.  Some of the pending negotiations, however, were near conclusion at that time, and the resulting conventions have since been signed by the plenipotentiaries.  Others, within both the third and fourth sections of the act, are still under consideration.  Acting under the constitutional power of the Executive in respect to treaties, I have deemed it my duty, while observing the limitations of concession provided by the fourth section, to bring to a conclusion all pending negotiations, and submit them to the Senate for its advice and consent.

Conventions of reciprocity have been signed during the Congressional recess with Great Britain for the respective colonies of British Guiana, Barbados, Bermuda, Jamaica, and Turks and Caicos Islands, and with the Republic of Nicaragua.

Important reciprocal conventions have also been concluded with France and with the Argentine Republic.

In my last annual message the progress noted in the work of the diplomatic and consular officers in collecting information as to the industries and commerce of other countries, and in the care and promptitude with which their reports are printed and distributed, has continued during the past year, with increasingly valuable results in suggesting new sources of demand for American products and in pointing out the obstacles still to be overcome in facilitating the remarkable expansion of our foreign trade.  It will doubtless be gratifying to Congress to learn that the various agencies of the Department of State are co-operating in these endeavors with a zeal and effectiveness which are not only receiving the cordial recognition of our business interests, but are exciting the emulation of other Governments.  In any rearrangement of the great and complicated work of obtaining official data of an economic character which Congress may undertake it is most important, in my judgment, that the results already secured by the efforts of the Department of State should be carefully considered with a view to a judicious development and increased utility to our export trade.

The interest taken by the various States forming the International Union of American Republics in the work of its organic bureau is evidenced by the fact that for the first time since its creation in 1890 all the Republics of South and Central America are now represented in it.