I shall be glad to have your confirmation of the accord thus reached.

Accept, Excellency, the renewed assurances of my highest consideration.

His Excellency

CHARLES E. HUGHES

Mr. AUGUSTO COCHRANE DE ALENCAR,

Ambassador of Brazil.

[The Ambassador of Brazil to the Secretary of State.]

Mr. Secretary of State,

[Translation]

BRAZILIAN EMBASSY,

Washington, October 18, 1923.

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's note of today's date, communicating to me your understanding of the views developed by the conversations which have recently taken place between the Governments of Brazil and the United States at Rio de Janeiro and Washington with reference to the treatment which shall be accorded by each country to the commerce of the other.

I am happy to be able to confirm to you, under instructions from my Government, your Excellency's understanding of the said views as set forth in the following terms:

The conversations between the two Governments have disclosed a mutual understanding which is that in respect to customs and other duties and charges affecting importations of the products and manufactures of Brazil into the United States and of the United States into Brazil, each country will accord to the other unconditional most-favored-nation treatment, with the exception, however, of the special treatment which the United States accords or hereafter may accord to Cuba and of the commerce between the United States and its dependencies and the Panama Canal Zone.

The true meaning and effect of this engagement is that, excepting only the special arrangements mentioned in the preceding paragraph, the natural, agricultural and manufactured prod

[448 ucts of Brazil and the United States will pay on their importation into the other country the lowest rates of duty collectible at the time of such importation on articles of the same kind when imported from any other country, and it is understood that, with the above mentioned exceptions, every decrease of duty now accorded or which hereafter may be accorded by Brazil or the United States by law, proclamation, decree, or commercial treaty or agreement to the products of any third power will become immediately applicable without request and without compensation to the products of the United States and Brazil, respectively, on their importation into the other country.

It is the purpose of Brazil and the United States and it is herein expressly declared that the provisions of this arrangement shall relate only to duties and charges affecting importations of merchandise and that nothing contained herein shall be construed to restrict the right of Brazil and the United States to impose, on such terms as they may see fit, prohibitions or restrictions of a sanitary character designed to protect human, animal or plant life, or regulations for the enforcement of police or revenue laws.

I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to Your Excellency the assurances of my highest consideration.

A. DE ALENCAR.

His Excellency Mr. CHARLES EVANS HUGHES,

Secretary of State of the United States of America.1

The conclusion of this arrangement put into positive and practical effect the new American commercial policy derived from Section 317 of the Tariff Act of 1922. Its adoption

1Treaty Series, no. 672. Brazil promptly issued a decree extending to the United States the only preferences granted to an outside country, those affecting fresh fruits from Argentina (the former preferences to Belgium had not been renewed for 1923). Brazil has also issued a decree providing that on and after Jan. 1, 1924, maximum duties will be levied on products of countries which have maximum-minimum schedules and which do not concede minimum rates to Brazil.-New York Times, October 25, 1923.

by the executive branch of the Government had already been evidenced by the inclusion of an unconditional mostfavored-nation clause in the commercial treaty with Turkey signed at Lausanne on August 6, 1923.1 "It should.. be observed," said Secretary Hughes in an address delivered November 30, 1923,2" that in our commercial relations the United States is seeking unconditional most-favored-nation treatment in customs matters." A few days later a new commercial treaty based on that principle was concluded with Germany.3

The new policy may be said to have been completely accepted by the United States if and when such a treaty shall have been entered into by and with the advice and consent of the Senate of the United States.

1New York Times, August 7, 1923.

The Centenary of the Monroe Doctrine. In this same speech he outlined the policy pursued toward Brazil and expressed readiness to enter into similar engagements with other countries. The State Department set forth the position of the United States Government in a letter of November 13, 1923, to the New York correspondent of La Nación (Buenos Aires). The following is an excerpt from this letter:

"Initial steps have recently been taken looking toward the negotiation of new treaties of amity, commerce and consular rights with the five countries of Central America, in each of which it is the purpose of this Government to incorporate a provision for unconditional most-favored-nation treatment in customs matters, should such a provision be found to be agreeable to the Government of the other interested country. The Department contemplates making similar overtures in the near future to other LatinAmerican countries for the negotiation of new treaties, or the modification of existing treaties, in harmony with this principle, excepting, however, as in the recent exchange of notes with Brazil, the special treatment which the United States accords or hereafter may accord to Cuba and the commerce between the United States and its dependencies and the Panama Canal Zone. Meanwhile, pending the conclusion of a treaty, the Department would be prepared to give prompt consideration to any proposal to bring about reciprocal most-favored-nation treatment by an exchange of notes similar to or identical, mutatis mutandis, with the recent exchange between the United States and Brazil.”

Signed Dec. 8, 1923. New York Times, Dec. 9, 1923. Text of Articles VII (most-favored-nation), VIII and IX, infra, subdivision 64.

CHAPTER IX

THE AMERICAN TRADITION OF EQUALITY AND THE OPEN DOOR

IN one of the addresses by means of which he stated the policy of his administration to the voters of the country during the campaign of 1922, Secretary Hughes said:

We wish to maintain . . . equality of commercial opportunity—as we call it, the open door. That is not in derogation of anybody else. The door is just as open to others as it is to us. Equality means equality. It doesn't mean privilege.1

In doing so he re-affirmed a traditional American principle. Throughout its entire history the United States has been an exponent of the Open Door. The phrase was, however, given the wings upon which it mounted so high in subsequent international thought by the masterly policy through which, in 1899 and subsequent years, John Hay, Secretary of State of the United States, sought to preserve in China both equality of economic opportunity for American commercial interests and the political integrity of that country itself for the benefit of all concerned. The idea involved is in the first instance one of internal administration. It applies primarily to the conditions found in states that are weak politically but which, because of their economic advantages, have attracted the capital of strong states. If there is an Open Door there is no exclusive economic con

1Speech of the Secretary of State at Cleveland, Ohio, November 4, 1922, as quoted in New York Herald, November 5, 1922.

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trol by any one outside nation, and the capital of every nation has equality of opportunity for profitable investment. The principle extends to matters of commerce and may be said to include equality of treatment to all foreign countries with respect to customs duties and all charges that bear upon international exchanges of goods. Some writers have used the words open door as descriptive of any region where equality of customs treatment and commercial opportunity prevails.1

Certainly a very clear and a very helpful analogy exists between the principle of the Open Door and the principle of unconditional most-favored-nation treatment. The requirements of consistency, moreover, urge upon a country whose policy in general is one of the Open Door the necessity of pursuing, with reference to commercial intercourse with all countries, such a policy as that written into Section 317 of the Tariff Act of 1922. Treaties containing the unconditional most-favored-nation clause are, as has been seen, the appropriate means for translating this policy into practice.

In order to indicate, within the bounds of necessary brevity, the strong hold which the principle embodied in Section. 317 has upon the United States because of the consistency of that principle with the well-defined policy of the Open Door, the following topics may be selected as sufficiently illustrative: (a) American tariff policy; (b) the Hay notes concerning China; (c) the pronouncements of the Washing

1 In this connection see Preferential Tariffs and the Open Door," by Dr. Benjamin B. Wallace-The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March, 1924.

"If the phrase "open door" should develop the connotation of equality of economic treatment in and by powerful and wholly independent states as well as in weak or dependent countries, unconditional most-favorednation treatment might be considered the purely commercial expression of the Open Door.