leave the country in which he has been residing or to pass, on his way to the United States, through a country in which passports are required. A passport should not be issued merely to facilitate entry into the United States. An emergency passport issued under the conditions mentioned should be limited to a period sufficient to cover the date of embarkation or period of passage and should recite upon its face the object for which it is issued. I am, etc., P. C. KNOX. DECLARATION OF FOREIGN-BORN CHILDREN REQUIRED BY SECTION 6, ACT OF MARCH 2, 1907. File No. 137.11/a. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, March 14, 1911. To the diplomatic and consular officers of the United States: GENTLEMEN: Referring to the Department's circular instruction of April 19, 1907, entitled "Children of Citizens Born Abroad," and to section 6 of the act of March 2, 1907, quoted therein, you are informed that the Department has decided that no declarations of "intention to become residents and remain citizens of the United States" required therein have reference to the right of protection rather than citizenship under municipal law, and that such declarations may be made at any time after the minors concerned have reached the age of 18 years and before they take the oath of allegiance to the United States; not necessarily before they reach the age of 19 years. GENTLEMEN: You are informed that persons may be registered in principal consular offices as citizens of Porto Rico or the Philippine Islands, "owing allegiance to the United States," in the books provided for the registration of American citizens, with the necessary changes made therein. As to those persons who are entitled to be considered citizens of Porto Rico, you are referred to the act of Congress of April 12, 1900, establishing a civil government for Porto Rico, which provides as follows: All inhabitants continuing to reside therein who were Spanish subjects on the 11th day of April, 1899, and then resided in Porto Rico, and their children born subsequent thereto, shall be deemed and held to be citizens of Porto Rico, and as such entitled to the protection of the United States, except such as shall have elected to preserve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain on or before the 11th day of April, 1900, in accordance with the provisions of the 1 See Foreign Relations, 1907, p. & treaty of peace between the United States and Spain entered into on the 11th day of April, 1899. As to those persons who are entitled to be considered citizens of the Philippine Islands, you are referred to the following provisions of the act of July 1, 1902: All inhabitants of the Philippine Islands continuing to reside therein, who were Spanish subjects on the 11th day of April, 1899, and then resided in said islands, and their children born subsequent thereto, shall be deemed and held to be citizens of the Philippine Islands and as such entitled to the protection of the United States, except such as shall have elected to preserve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain in accordance with the provisions of the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain, signed at Paris, December 10, 1898. (30 Stat. L., 1754. Van Dyne on Naturalization, c. IV, pp. 309 and 310.) It has been held that the requirements of the laws quoted as to residence in Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands refer to legal residence and not necessarily bodily presence on the dates stated. Persons applying for registration as citizens of Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands should be required to produce sworn applications as to birth and residence, accompanied by the best documentary evidence procurable that they were Spanish subjects at the time of the annexation of the islands, and you should require that their statements be supported by affidavits of two credible persons, as in applications for insular passports. Duplicate certificates of registration should not be issued to persons claiming citizenship of Porto Rico or the Philippine Islands until their applications have been approved by the Department. I am, etc., (For Mr. Knox) WILBUR J. CARR. RULES TO PREVENT COLLISION OF VESSELS.1 DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, August 3, 1911. To the diplomatic officers of the United States: GENTLEMEN: I inclose herewith two copies of Treasury Department Circular No. 230 of June 27, 1911, containing "Rules to Prevent Collisions of Vessels." In the left-hand column are printed the revised international rules, and in the right-hand column the rules for the navigation of rivers, harbors, and inland waters of the United States navigable by seagoing vessels. One copy of the circular you will communicate to the Government to which you are accredited, inviting its attention particularly to pages 15-17, on which are printed the lines of demarcation within which, after July 31, 1911, the inland rules of the right-hand column are applicable (except on the Red River of the North and rivers flowing into the Gulf of Mexico and their tributaries) and also the lines of demarcation of inland waters of the United States bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, where the pilot rules for western rivers apply. I am, etc., P. C. KNOX. 1 This circular supersedes Circular No. 158, Nov. 21, 1907, of the Department of Commerce and Labor. The above circular of the Department of State refers to it as a publication of the Treasury Department, but it is Department Circular No. 230 of the Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of Navigation. ARGENTINA. MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT TO THE CONGRESS. File No. 835.032/4. [The message of the President, Dr. Roque Saenz Peña, was read to the Congress May 12, 1911, and transmitted to the Secretary of State May 13 by the chargé d'affaires, Mr. Bliss. The following is the only passage referring to the United States:] [Translation.] The conciliatory action taken by the Republic, together with the United States and Brazil, in the conflict between Peru and Ecuador, although not reaching a final settlement, has contributed toward maintaining continental peace by revealing the high purposes that actuate the three mediators. ARGENTINE FLOUR. (Under Brazil, Preferential Tariff Concessions, see the memorandum of the Argentine Legation, June 9, 1911; memorandum of the Secretary of State, June 13, 1911; and the dispatch of the American chargé d'affaires at Buenos Aires, June 28, 1911.) CONSTRUCTION OF THE "MOST-FAVORED-NATION " CLAUSE IN COMMERCIAL TREATIES. File No. 611.0031/28. The Argentine Chargé d'Affaires to the Secretary of State. [Translation.] ARGENTINE LEGATION, Washington, March 6, 1911. Mr. SECRETARY OF STATE: In compliance with instructions I have received from the minister for foreign relations, I have the honor to apply to your excellency with a request that you please to let me know, provided there be no objection thereto, what is the construction put by your excellency's Government on the "most-favored-nation" clause in the various commercial treaties it has concluded. My Government is specially interested in knowing how this clause is reconciled with the provisions of treaties by which one of the contracting parties grants concessions to the other in return for advantages received. Thanking your excellency in advance for this information so needful to my Government, I take [etc.], JACINTO L. VILLEGAS. The Acting Secretary of State to the Argentine Chargé d'Affaires. No. 124.] In reply, I have the honor to inform you that the uniform position of the Government of the United States for a century past in relation to this matter has been that the most-favored-nation clause respecting the tariff treatment of imports or exports does not apply to privileges which have been conceded by one contracting party to a third country in exchange for valuable and equivalent concessions. It is held by the United States that this clause is intended to prevent the willful preference by one contracting party of the commercial interests of third countries to the detriment of the other contracting party; but it does not require the extension, automatically and gratuitously, between contracting parties to a treaty containing the clause, of the privileges which either has granted to a third country in exchange for reciprocal and equivalent concessions. Under the interpretation invariably placed upon these clauses by the Government of the United States the quality of tariff treatment under the clause means identity of treatment under similar circumstances. For example, the Department of State in an instruction in 1884 to the American minister to Japan approved the position then taken by the Japanese Government to the effect that "if a favor for a specific condition be stipulated with any one nation, no other may enjoy the favor except upon identical or equivalent conditions." The foregoing is a concise statement of the position of the United States in this matter. For the fuller information of your Government, however, the Department is glad to inform you that its tariff officers have been directed to compile a careful memorandum of the precedents in the diplomatic correspondence of the United States. I shall take pleasure in transmitting to you a copy of this statement as soon as completed.1 Accept, etc., HUNTINGTON WILSON. PRESENTATION OF A STATUE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON TO ARGENTINA BY AMERICAN CITIZENS RESIDENT THERE. File No. 835.415A/99. The American Chargé d'Affaires to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. AMERICAN LEGATION, Buenos Aires, November 30, 1910. Mr. MINISTER: I have the honor to advise your excellency that in September of last year the United States minister, Mr. Sherrill, advised Dr. V. de la Plaza, then minister for foreign affairs and 1 See Senate Document 29, 62d Cong., 1st sess. worship, that the citizens of the United States residing in Argentina were desirous of presenting a statue to this Republic in commemoration of her centennial of independence. Since then the matter has not been treated except by an exchange of notes between your excellency's Department and this legation. A committee appointed by the citizens of the United States residing in this Republic have now called to inform me that the compatriots they represent desire to express their high appreciation of the advantages which they continue to enjoy under the free and enlightened Government of the Argentine Republic, and see no more fitting way of so doing than to present to your excellency's Government a statue of George Washington in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the independence which Argentina celebrates this year. At the request of this committee, and in the name. of the citizens of the United States residing in this Republic, I have the honor to offer through your excellency to His Excellency the President of the Nation a statue of George Washington, in token of their desire to participate in the centennial anniversary of independence by a gift to the Argentine Nation. I avail [etc.], ROBERT WOODS BLISS. The Minister for Foreign Affairs to the American Chargé d'Affaires. [Translation.] FOREIGN OFFICE, Buenos Aires, December 23, 1910. Mr. CHARGÉ D'AFFAIRES: I have had the pleasure of acquainting myself with your kind note, dated the 30th ultimo, in which, referring to the several communications exchanged on the subject, you say that a commission [etc.]. I had no sooner received the kind communication, which I now answer, than I hastened to bring it to the knowledge of His Excellency the President of the Nation, who has confided to me the pleasant duty of extending to you, in his own name and that of the Argentine people, the expression of the deepest and most hearty appreciation for the proof of sincere friendship which has been given us by the sons of the great North American Nation, who, by their noble work, worthily contribute to the progress of our country. Begging you kindly to be the interpreter of these sentiments it gives me pleasure to greet you with my distinguished consideration. ERNESTO BOSCH. [From the Boletin Oficial of June 28, 1911.] [Translation-Extract.] Law No. 8122.-Acceptance of the statue of George Washington. ARTICLE 1. The statue of George Washington, offered by the citizens of the United States of North America residing in Argentina. in commemoration of the first centenary of independence, is hereby accepted. |