To the Senate of the United States: 

I transmit, with a view to its ratification, a declaration, signed December 1, 1886, and March 23, 1887, for Germany, by the delegates of the powers signatories of the convention of March 14, 1884, for the protection of submarine cables, defining the sense of articles 2 and 4 of the said convention.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 7, 1888.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

I transmit herewith a communication of 4th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, submitting, with other papers, a draft of a bill to accept and ratify an agreement made with the Shoshone and Bannock Indians for the surrender and relinquishment to the United States of a portion of the Fort Hall Reservation, in the Territory of Idaho, for the purposes of a town site, and for the grant of a right of way through said reservation to the Utah and Northern Railway Company, and for other purposes.

The matter is presented for the consideration of the Congress.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 20, 1888.

To the Senate of the United States: 

I transmit herewith a report furnished by the Secretary of State in response to a resolution of the Senate of the 2d instant, making inquiry respecting the present condition of the Virginius indemnity fund.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 20, 1888.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

I transmit herewith and commend to your favorable consideration a report from the Secretary of State, in relation to an invitation which this Government has received from the Belgian Government to participate in an international exhibition of sciences and industry which will open at Brussels in the month of May next.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 20, 1888.

To the Senate of the United States: 

In my annual message transmitted to the Congress in December, 1886, it was stated that negotiations were then pending for the settlement of the questions growing out of the rights claimed by American fishermen in British North American waters.

As a result of such negotiations a treaty has been agreed upon between Her Britannic Majesty and the United States, concluded and signed in this capital, under my direction and authority, on the 15th of February instant, and which I now have the honor to submit to the Senate with the recommendation that it shall receive the consent of that body, as provided in the Constitution, in order that the ratifications thereof may be duly exchanged and the treaty be carried into effect.