GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 21, 1889.

To the Senate of the United States: 

I transmit herewith, in response to a resolution of the Senate of the 5th instant, a report of the Secretary of State, touching correspondence with Venezuela in regard to the exchange of ratifications of the claims convention of December 5, 1885, between the United States and Venezuela and to the suspension by Venezuela of the monthly quotas of indebtedness under the convention between the two countries of April 25, 1866, together with copies of sundry correspondence between the Department of State and owners of Venezuelan certificates of award or their attorneys on the same subject, as requested in said resolution.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 30, 1889.

To the Senate and the House of Representatives: 

For the information of Congress I herewith transmit a report of the Secretary of State, with accompanying correspondence, relating to the execution of an agreement made between the representatives of certain foreign powers and the Korean Government in 1884 in respect to a foreign settlement at Chemulpo.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 30, 1880.

To the Congress: 

I had the honor on the 15th instant to communicate to your honorable body certain correspondence and documents in relation to affairs in the Samoan Islands[29]; and having since that date received further dispatches from the vice-consul at Apia and the commander of the United States naval vessel Nipsic in those waters, I lose no time in laying them before you.

I also transmit herewith the full text of an instruction from Prince von Bismarck to the German minister at this capital, which was communicated to the Secretary of State on the afternoon of the 28th instant.

This appears to be an amplification of a prior telegraphic instruction on the same subject communicated through the same channel, and, being set forth in the note of the Secretary of State to Count von Arco-Valley, the German minister, of the 12th instant, was duly laid before Congress with my last message in relation to Samoan affairs.

It is also proper to inform you that on Monday, the 28th instant, the occasion of the communication of the note of the Prince Chancellor, the Secretary of State was given to understand by the German minister that a proposition from his Government to that of the United States for a conference on the Samoan subject was on its way by mail, having left Berlin on the 20th instant, so that its arrival here in due course of mail could be looked for in a very short time.

In reply to an inquiry from the Secretary of State whether the proposition referred to was for a renewal of the joint conference between the United States, Germany, and Great Britain which was suspended in July, 1887, or for a consideration of Samoan affairs ab novo, the German minister stated his inability to answer until the proposition which left Berlin on the 20th instant should have been received.