55TH CONGRESS, ( HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. ( DOCUMENT 3d Session. { No. 276. COMPILATION OF TREATIES IN FORCE. PREPARED UNDER ACT OF JULY 7, 1898. WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. PREFACE. This compilation of treaties in force has been prepared to be of general service in showing what the obligations of the United States are at the present time with the foreign nations of the world. In the twelve years that the compiler had charge of the editing, indexing, and printing of the United States Statutes at Large, in which the treaties and conventions also appeared as they were proclaimed, he realized that it would be of practical utility to have a volume of the treaty engagements now existing, from which should be omitted the text of those that for various reasons were no longer in operation. The plan of such a collection was submitted to Secretary of State Olney, and met with his approval. After the draft of the arrangement had been prepared it was brought to the attention of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, and a Joint Resolution was reported authorizing the preparation of such a compilation under the direction of the Committee. The resolution passed both Houses near the close of the first session of the Fifty-fifth Congress, and though it was enrolled there was not time to secure the signature of the Speaker before the gavel announced the adjournment of the session. At the next session, upon the recommendation of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, the following item was incorporated in the deficiency appropriation bill, approved July 7, 1898: That a competent person be employed under the direction of the Committee on Foreign Relations, at a compensation in full not exceeding one thousand five hundred dollars, which is hereby appropriated, to make a compilation of all the treaties now in force between the United States and any foreign Government. Said compilation shall contain the full text of the treaties now in force, together with a citation of any decision which may have been made in regard to said treaties by the Supreme Court of the United States or any court of Federal jurisdiction. The said work shall also contain a list, in chronological order, of all the treaties at any time made by the United States with other foreign countries, with a reference to the page and volume where the text of the same may be found; the whole to be carefully indexed by countries and by subject-matters. There shall be printed one thousand five hundred copies of said volume, one thousand for the use of the House of Representatives and five hundred for the use of the Senate. More than fifty treaties have come into effect since the publication of the document which was submitted to the Senate in response to its resolution of January 5, 1885, and which had been carefully collated by Mr. John H. Haswell, for many years the efficient chief of the |