The year has been marked by constant increase in the intimacy of our relations with Mexico and in the magnitude of mutually advantageous interchanges.  This Government has omitted no opportunity to show its strong desire to develop and perpetuate the ties of cordiality now so long happily unbroken.

Following the termination on January 20, 1899, by Mexico of the convention of extradition of December 11, 1861, a new treaty more in accordance with the ascertained needs of both countries was signed February 22, 1899, and exchanged in the City of Mexico on the 22d of April last.  Its operation thus far has been effective and satisfactory.  A recent case has served to test the application of its IVth Article, which provides that neither party shall be bound to deliver up its own citizens, but that the executive authority of each shall have the power to deliver them up if in its discretion it be deemed proper to do so.

The extradition of Mrs. Mattie Rich, a citizen of the United States, charged with homicide committed in Mexico, was after mature consideration directed by me in the conviction that the ends of justice would be thereby subserved.  Similar action, on appropriate occasion, by the Mexican Executive will not only tend to accomplish the desire of both Governments that grave crimes go not unpunished, but also to repress lawlessness along the border of the two countries.  The new treaty stipulates that neither Government shall assume jurisdiction in the punishment of crimes committed exclusively within the territory of the other.  This will obviate in future the embarrassing controversies which have heretofore arisen through Mexico’s assertion of a claim to try and punish an American citizen for an offense committed within the jurisdiction of the United States.

The International Water Boundary Commission, organized by the convention of March 1, 1889, for the adjustment of questions affecting the Rio Grande frontier, has not yet completed its labors.  A further extension of its term for one year, until December 24, 1899, was effected by a convention signed December z, 1898, and exchanged and proclaimed in February last.

An invitation extended to the President of Mexico to visit Chicago in October, on the occasion of laying the corner stone of the United States Government building in that city, was cordially accepted by him, with the necessary consent of the Mexican Congress, but the illness of a member of his family prevented his attendance.  The Minister of Foreign Relations, however, came as the personal representative of President Diaz, and in that high character was duly honored.

Claims growing out of the seizure of American sealing vessels in Bering Sea have been under discussion with the Government of Russia for several years, with the recent happy result of an agreement to submit them to the decision of a single arbitrator.  By this act Russia affords proof of her adherence to the beneficent principle of arbitration which her plenipotentiaries conspicuously favored at The Hague Disarmament Conference when it was advocated by the representatives of the United States.