Speech #580003840

After full and mature consideration that bill came from the other House as a reflection of the wishes and of the will of that great body. I wish to call the attention of the Senate to some of the very radical and substantial differences in the requirements of that bill and the provisions of the present treaty. That bill provided. first. that after the enactment by the Government of Cuba of immigration. exclusion. and contractlabor laws similar and equally as restrictive as the laws of the United States on those subjects. the President of the United States would be authorized to negotiate with the Government of Cuba a commercial agreement. wherein reciprocal and equivalent concessions would be secured to each of the contracting parties in favor of the products and manufactures of the two countries upon a reduction of the rate of duties equivalent to 20 per cent ad valorem upon the tariff duties of the Governments of the two contracting parties. and this commercial agreement was limited in its operation to the 1st day of December. 1903. It was further provided in that bill that the differential on refined sugar should be abolished. Mark you. sir. this bill carried with it the will of the majority of the House. the only body known to the Constitution of our country as having the right to originate revenue measures. It declared in unmistakable and unequivocal terms that no reciprocal relations or commercial union should be entered into between this Government and the Republic of Cuba until the latter Government had adopted such immigration and contractlabor laws as would prevent either the cheap labor of Europe or the serf labor of the Orient from coning in competition with the agricultural labor of this country. This was not only a wise and safe but it was a patriotic provision. Again. this House bill proposed an abolition of the differential on refined sugar.