on the 4th day of April, 1911, at 12 o'clock noon, to the end that they may consider and determine whether the Congress shall, by the necessary legislation, make operative the agreement. All persons entitled to act as Members of the Sixty-second Congress are required to take notice of this proclamation. Given under my hand and the seal of the United States at Wash ington the 4th day of March, A.D. 1911, and of the in[SEAL.] dependence of the United States the one hundred and thirty-fifth. By the President: P. C. KNOX, Secretary of State. WILLIAM H. TAFT. SPECIAL MESSAGE. [Directing attention of Congress to the reciprocal tariff agreement between the Dominion of Canada and the United States.] THE WHITE HOUSE, April 5, 1911. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmitted to the Sixty-first Congress on January 26th last the text of the reciprocal trade agreement which had been negotiated, under my direction, by the Secretary of State with the representatives of the Dominion of Canada. This agreement was the consummation. of earnest efforts, extending over a period of nearly a year, on the part of both governments to effect a trade arrangement which, supplementing as it did the amicable settlement of various questions of a diplomatic and political character that had been reached, would mutually promote commerce and would strengthen the friendly relations now existing. The agreement in its intent and in its terms was purely economic and commercial. While the general subject was under discussion by the commissioners, I felt assured that the sentiment of the people of the United States was such that they would welcome a measure which would result in the increase of trade on both sides of the boundary line, would open up the reserve productive resources of Canada to the great mass of our own consumers on advantageous conditions, and at the same time offer a broader outlet for the excess products of our farms and many of our industries. Details regarding a negotiation of this kind necessarily could not be made public while the conferences were pending. When, however, the full text of the agreement, with the accompanying correspondence and data explaining both its purpose and its scope, became known to the people through the message transmitted to Congress, it was immediately apparent that the ripened fruits of the careful labors of the commissioners met with widespread approval. This approval has been strengthened by further consideration of the terms of the agreement in all their particulars. The volume of support which has developed shows that its broadly national scope is fully appreciated and is responsive to the popular will. The House of Representatives of the Sixty-first Congress, after the full text of the arrangement with all the details in regard to the different provisions had been before it, as they were before the American people, passed a bill confirming the agreement as negotiated and as transmitted to Congress. This measure failed of action in the Senate. In my transmitting message of the 26th of January I fully set forth the character of the agreement and emphasized its appropriateness and necessity as a response to the mutual needs of the people of the two countries as well as its common advantages. I now lay that message, and the reciprocal trade agreement as integrally part of the present message, before the Sixty-second Congress and again invite earnest attention to the considerations therein expressed. I am constrained, in deference to popular sentiment and with a realizing sense of my duty to the great masses of our people whose welfare is involved, to urge upon your consideration early action on this agreement. In concluding the negotiations, the representatives of the two countries bound themselves to use their utmost efforts to bring about the tariff changes provided for in the agreement by concurrent. .legislation at Washington and Ottawa. I have felt it my duty, therefore, not to acquiesce in relegation of action until the opening of the Congress in December, but to use my constitutional prerogative and convoke the Sixty-second Congress in extra session in order that there shall be no break of continuity in considering and acting upon this most important subject. WILLIAM H. TAFT. SPEECH OF PRESIDENT TAFT ON THE RECIPROCAL TARIFF AGREEMENT WITH CANADA Delivered in New York, on April 27, 1911 The treaty provides for free trade in all agricultural products, and in rough lumber down to the point of planing. It reduces the duties on secondary food products by a very substantial percentage, and it makes such reductions on a number of manufactured articles that those engaged in making them have assured us that the reductions will substantially increase the already large Canadian demand for them. We tendered to the Canadian commissioners absolutely free trade in all products of either country, manufactured or natural, but the Canadian commissioners did not feel justified in going so far. It is only reasonable to infer, therefore, that with respect to those articles upon which they refused free trade to us they felt that the profitable price at which they could be sold by our manufacturers in Canada was less than the price at which their manufacturers could afford to sell the same either to their own people or to us. Hence it follows that their refusal to agree to free trade in these articles, as we proposed, is the strongest kind of evidence that if we should take off the existing duty from such articles coming into the United States it would not affect in the slightest degree the price at which those articles could be furnished to the public here. In other words, the proposition to put on the free list for entrance into the United States all articles that Canada has declined to make free in. both countries would not lower the price to the consumer here. Thus the reason why meats were not put on the free list in this Canadian agreement was because Canada felt that the competition of our packers would injuriously affect the products of their packing houses. If that be true, how would it help our consumer or lower the price of meat in our markets if we let their meat in free while they retained a duty on our meat? The same thing is true of flour. They would not consent to free trade in flour, because they knew that our flour mills could undersell their millers. If that were so, then how much competition and lowering of the price of flour could we expect from putting Canadian flour on the free list? And yet gentlemen insist that the farmer has been unjustly treated because we have not put Canadian flour and meat on the free list. And it is proposed to satisfy the supposed grievance of the farmers by now doing so, without any compensating concession from Canada. This proposal would be legislation passed for political-platform uses, without accomplishing any real good. In another aspect, however, the effect of the proposal might be serious. Of course a mere reduction of our tariff, or the putting of any article on our free list, without insisting on a corresponding change in the Canadian tariff, will not interfere with the contract as made with Canada. Canada cannot object to our giving her greater tariff concessions than we have agreed to give her under the contract. But if we do make such concessions, without any consideration on the part of Canada, without any quid pro quo, so to speak, after the contract has been tentatively agreed upon by those authorized to make con |