PEKIOD FROM 1854 TO 1871. 561 



Her Majesty's Government have seen with much satisfaction the 

 increase of the trading relations between the United States and 

 the British provinces which has grown up under the Treaty, and the 

 beneficial results of the stipulations it contains, by virtue of which 

 each Contracting Party enjoys the uninterrupted use of the facilities 

 of transport to the seaboard possessed by the other, and participates 

 side by side in the fisheries, without restriction or interference. 



Her Majesty's Government would be well content to renew the 

 Treaty in its present form. 



At the same time they are ready to reconsider the Treaty in con- 

 junction with the Government of the United States, if such a course 

 would be agreeable to them, and so to modify its terms as to render it, 

 if possible, more beneficial to both countries than it has hitherto been. 



If the Government of the United States should feel disposed to 

 adopt the latter course, an arrangement of a provisional character 

 might be entered into with a view to afford time for fresh negotia- 

 tions, and I should take pleasure in submitting to the consideration 

 of my Government any proposal to that effect which you might do mo 

 the honour to communicate to me. 

 I have, &c. 



Frederick W. A. Bruce. 



W. H. Seward, Esq. 



Mr. Seward to Sir F. Bruce. 



Department of State, 

 Washington, February 17, 1866. 



Sir, I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of a note which 

 you addressed to me on the 16th instant, concerning a proposed exten- 

 sion of the Reciprocity Treaty. Perhaps I could not reply in any 

 other manner more satisfactorily than I shall now do by stating anew 

 the verbal explanations which I have had heretofore occasion to make 

 to you upon that subject: 



The character of the constitutional distribution of public affairs 

 among the different Departments of the Government is well known. 

 It confides commerce and national finance expressly to the Legis- 

 lature. 



The now expiring Reciprocity Treaty constitutes almost the only 

 case in which the Executive Department has, by negotiation, assumed 

 a supervision of any question of either commerce or finance. Even 

 in that case the Executive Department did little more than to make 

 ;i Treaty, the details of which had been i irtually matured beforehand 

 in the Congre i of The United States, and sanction was given to tho 

 Treaty afterward by expre I gi Lai ion. 



The question of continuing that Treaty involves mainly subjects 

 of the special character which I have before described. 



Careful inquiry made during the recess of Congress induced tho 

 President to believe that there was then no such harmony of public 



atiment in favour of the extension of the Treaty as would encour- 

 age him in directing negoi iations to be opened. Enquiries made nice 



the re-a sembling of Congr< confir <l the belief (hen adopted 



thai Congress prefer to treat the subjecl directly, and not to ap- 

 proach it through the forms of diplomatic agreement. 



