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constitutes under their State law a first lien upon their assets; that such banks have kept and maintained a guarantee fund in United States legal-tender notes including Treasury notes of 1890 equal to thirty per cent of their outstanding circulating notes and that such banks have promptly redeemed their circulating notes when presented at their principal or branch offices.

It is quite likely that this scheme may be usefully amended in some of its details; but I am satisfied it furnishes a basis for a very great improvement in our present banking and currency system.

I conclude this communication fully appreciating that the responsibility for all legislation affecting the people of the United States rests upon their representatives in the Congress, and assuring them that, whether in accordance with recommendations I have made or not, I shall be glad to cooperate in perfecting any legislation that tends to the prosperity and welfare of our country.

EXECUTIVE MANSION,

December 3, 1894.

GROVER CLEVELAND

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SIR: The Department's instruction of May 1, 1891, inclosed copies of an act of Congress entitled "An act to amend title 60, chapter 3, of the Revised Statutes of the United States relating to copyrights," and directed you to present a copy of the law to the Government to which you are accredited, inviting attention to the fact that the benefits of the statute are extended to the citizens of foreign states only after a proclamation of the President to be issued under conditions specified in section 13.

No response accepting the provisions of this act having been received from the Government to which you are accredited, the Department wishes you again to call the attention of that Government to the subject with a view of ascertaining whether it is disposed to avail itself of the privilege offered by section 13 of the act.

The governments whose laws permit to citizens of the United States the benefit of copyright on substantially the same basis as to their own citizens or subjects, and in whose favor the President has issued his proclamation, are Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain and the British Possessions, Italy, and Switzerland.

I am, etc.,

W. Q. GRESHAM.

No. 279.]

Mr. Fishback to Mr. Gresham.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,

Buenos Ayres, October 1, 1893. (Received December 14.) SIR: I have the honor to report that in accordance with the instructions contained in Department No. 241, Minister Pitkin on July 11, 1893, addressed a note to the Argentine minister of foreign affairs, calling his excellency's attention to a legation note of June 10, 1891, a copy of which was inclosed in legation No. 267 to the Department of State, and requested the Argentine Government to indicate whether it were disposed to avail itself of the privilege offered by section 13 of the act of the U. S. Congress "to amend title 60, chapter 3, of the Revised FR 91-1

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Statutes of the United States relating to copyrights;" that a reply from the foreign office has been received at this legation containing an opinion from the Argentine attorney general, a translation of which is inclosed, and stating that the said opinion had been adopted by the minister of justice, culture, and public worship.

I have, etc.,

GEO. W. FISHBACK.

[Inclosure in No. 279.-Translation.]

Opinion of Argentine attorney-general.

Mr. MINISTER: The United States of America, developing an inventive power superior to that of other nations, logically tends to insure the permanent property of its extraordinary productions and inventions, and to restrict the importation of similar foreign ones.

To this end responds its eminently protective legislation of the national industry and commerce, and this same purpose has been kept in view in the law referring to copyright, which his excellency the minister of the United States presents to your excellency, inviting the Argentine Government to avail itself of the privileges

offered in section 13.

In that section the benefits of the North American law are offered to the citizens and subjects of all foreign nations in exchange for a substantially equal concession by virtue of a special law or of international treaties.

The law which is offered for your excellency's acceptance recognizes the author's right to books, maps, drawings, plans, dramatic or musical productions, engravings, illustrations, photography, paintings, chromos, statues, models of works of art, etc., and consequently declares that no person may reproduce, print, copy, execute, finish, or sell such objects except their authors or concessionaires, and this subject to the following prescriptions of the same law:

(1) Registration of the title of the work or of the description of the guaranteed object.

(2) Publication of such registration at the expense of the interested party, during four weeks, in one or more newspapers of the United States.

(3) Deposit of copies or models in the Library of the U. S. Congress, it being understood that in the publication of a book, photograph, chromo, or lithograph, the copies that shall be delivered or deposited are to be respectively printed with the typographical compositions, plates, negatives, or lithographic drawings made in the United States. (4) That during the term of the author's rights the importation of objects equal to those guaranteed to their authors will be prohibited, it being necessary that the typographical composition, plates, negatives, etc., be made in the territory of the United States.

(5) Charges payable to the Treasury for the inscription, declaration, concession, etc. I have stated the principal prescriptions of the North American law as a necessary condition for obtaining the recognition of authors' rights, in order to prove, by its own terms, that if the law can be beneficial to the progress of the United States and other nations of great scientific, literary, or artistic growth, it is contrary to that same growth in new countries where literature and industries are in their infancy. International free trade brings us all the productions of the most progressive countries in science, industries, art, and literature, and the national industry, formed in a great measure by foreigners, copies engravings, prints, lithographs, and in fact reproduces without restrictions, the great works that instruct, teach, and prepare the public spirit for an original national production in a probably not remote future. Until that future arrives, our rising literature and arts, notwithstanding their great growth, are not yet in a position to overcome the obstacles of a legislation which, in exchange for the rights of authorship, imposes such onerous conditions as the publication and composition with plates, negatives, and typographical types madein the United States.

If our industrial, artistic, and literary productions can not yet aspire to compete advantageously with the great nations of the old continent and with the United States of America, a law, or a treaty establishing and accepting the principal condition of the law presented for your excellency's consideration, would lack its fundamental basis, which is reciprocity of benefits.

My opinion, therefore, is that it would be convenient for your excellency to reserve your acceptance until the increasing growth of our intellectual and material progress reaches the high level that it needs to really make effective the benefits of reciprocity offered in the North American law.

BINIANO KIER.

No. 261.]

Mr. Gresham to Mr. Fishback.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, December 15, 1893.

SIR: Your No. 279, of October 1, 1893, has been received. It communicates the conclusion of the Argentine Government that reciprocal copyright arrangements between the United States and Argentina are, at present at least, inexpedient.

The opinion of the attorney-general of the Republic, which is transmitted in translation, gives reasons for this determination; but it may be that Señor Kier has, to a slight extent, misapprehended his premises. He proceeds on the assumption that the privilege of international copyright offered by the United States rests on the existence of similar legislation in the foreign country of which citizens of the United States may enjoy the benefits, and he accordingly shows the impracticability of applying in the Argentine Republic the conditions relative to setting up and printing, etc., which obtain in the United States.

This assumption, however, is not involved in the invitation of this Government, which implies mutuality of individual treatment and not reciprocal identity of legislation. As section 13 of the copyright act reads, the President may, in his discretion, issue the prescribed proclamation on ascertaining that there is in the foreign country some definite regulation of copyright by statute, and that citizens of the United States may enjoy its benefits on substantially the same footing as the citizens of the foreign country.

It may be inferred, however, from the attorney-general's opinion that no copyright law exists in Argentina. If this be the case, there would be of course nothing to go upon in the way of mutual recognition of authors' rights in the two countries; but the invitation of this Government will have shown that friendly spirit of cordiality befitting the good relations which it is alike the pleasure and interest of the two governments to promote.

I am, etc.,

W. Q. GRESHAM.

PROPOSED TARIFF LEGISLATION.

Señor Zeballos to Mr. Gresham.

ARGENTINE LEGATION,

Washington, January 30, 1894. (Received February 1.)

SIR: In confirmation of the suggestions which I had the honor to place before your Department and the matters submitted to the consideration of the President of the Republic in regard to the mutual economical advantages that would result to the United States and my country by the free introduction of Argentine wools into the American market, I take pleasure in stating that the Argentine Congress in passing the tariff law for 1894, in the sessions held during the past week, included in the list of articles to be admitted free of duty, crude petroleum.

My Government directs by cable that I communicate with your Department, announcing the fact that this action has been taken in consideration of the report by the Committee on Ways and Means of the

House of Representatives of the United States, which recommended that wools be placed upon the list of articles to be admitted free of duty. The Argentine Government desires to strongly insist upon its opinion that the approval of this action in respect to wool will extraordinarily increase the volume of the commercial relations between the two countries and permit the manufactured products of the United States to enter into active competition with similar articles of European origin in the rich Argentine market.

It is also expected that the Argentine Congress will exempt from the payment of duties lumber, lubricating and fuel oils, and refined petroleum from this country, which articles are consumed in Argentine upon a large scale.

The exemption of crude petroleum is of the greatest importance for American commerce, for it will be remembered that in the Argentine Republic it is employed as a fuel in competition with English coals, the annual importation of which is as follows:

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Mr. Uhl to Señor Zeballos.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, February 3, 1894.

SIR: I have the nonor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 30th ultimo, informing me that in consideration of the recommendation of the Committee of Ways and Means of the House of Representatives that wools be placed upon the list of articles to be admitted into the United States free of duty, the Argentine Congress has, in the tariff law for 1894, included crude petroleum in the list of articles to be admitted free into the Argentine Republic, and that it is expected that the Argentine Congress will also exempt from the payment of duties lumber, lubricating and fuel oils, and refined petroleum from the United States.

It has given me pleasure to bring this information to the attention of the Committee on Finance of the Senate and that of Ways and Means of the House of Representatives.

Accept, etc.,

EDWIN F. UHL,

Acting Secretary.

No. 28.]

Mr. Buchanan to Mr. Gresham.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,

Buenos Ayres, June 20, 1894. (Received July 30.)

SIR: The minister of foreign affairs called at my residence last night to express the satisfaction felt by the President and by the Argentine Government on the reported passage by the United States Senate of the tariff bill carrying free wool.

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