Exchange of ratifications. AND WHEREAS by the terms of the said Convention it is provided that the ratifications thereof should be exchanged at the City of Washington as soon as may be before the thirty-first day of January, 1903, which period was by a Supplementary Convention signed by the Post, p. 2145. respective plenipotentiaries of the two countries on January 26, 1903, extended to the thirty-first day of March, 1903;
AND WHEREAS the said Convention of December 11, 1902, as amended by the Senate of the United States, and the said Supplementary Convention of January 26, 1903, have been duly ratified on both parts and the ratifications of the two Governments were exchanged in the City of Washington on the thirty-first day of March, 1903;
AND WHEREAS by its resolution of March 19, 1903 the Senate of the United States added at the end of Article XI of the said Convention of December 11, 1902, the following amendment:
"This Convention shall not take effect until the same shall have been approved by the Congress";
Approval by Congress. AND WHEREAS the Congress gave its approval to the said Convention by an Act approved December 17, 1903, entitled "An Act To carry into effect a convention between the United States and the Republic of Cuba, signed on the eleventh day of December, in the year nineteen hundred and two", which Act is word for word as follows:
Reciprocity act.
Ante, p. 3.
"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, That whenever the
President of the United States shall receive satisfactory evidence that
the Republic of Cuba has made provision to give full effect to the
Articles of the convention between the United States and the Republic
of Cuba, signed on the eleventh day of December, in the year nineteen hundred and two, he is hereby authorized to issue his proclamation declaring that he has received such evidence, and thereupon on
the tenth day after exchange of ratifications of such convention between the United States an the Republic of Cuba, and so long as the
said convention shall remain in force, all articles of merchandise being the
product of the soil or industry of the Republic of Cuba, which are now
imported into the United States free of duty, shall continue to be so
admitted free of duty, and all other articles of merchandise being the
product of the soil or industry of the Republic of Cuba imported into
the United States shall be admitted at a reduction of twenty per centum
of the rates of duty thereon, as provided by the tariff Act of the United
States, approved July twenty-fourth, eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, or as may be provided by any tariff law of the United States subsequently enacted. The rates of duty herein granted by the United States
to the Republic of Cuba are and shall continue during the term of said
convention preferential in respect to all like imports from other countries: Provided, That while said convention is in force no sugar
imported from the Republic of Cuba, and being the product of the
soil or industry of the Republic of Cuba, shall be admitted into the
United States at a reduction of duty greater than twenty per centum
of the rates of duty thereon, as provided by the tariff Act of the
United States, approved July twenty-fourth, eighteen hundred and
ninety-seven, and no sugar the product of any other foreign country
shall be admitted by treaty or convention into the United States
while this convention is in force at a lower rate of duty than that provided by the tariff Act of the United States approved July twenty-fourth, eighteen hundred and ninety-seven: And provided further,
That nothing herein contained shall be held or construed as an admission on the part of the House of Representatives that customs duties
can be changed otherwise than by an Act of Congress, originating in
said House.
