500.A 4e/13a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in China (Schurman)
75. At the request of State Department, Commerce has appointed Arnold90 as principal delegate to Tariff Revision Commission. The Department hopes to appoint, in the near future, a technical delegate to assist him.
By Article I of the annex to the Customs Treaty, assent to ratification of which was made by the Senate yesterday, this Government as convener of the recent Arms Conference is obligated to extend an invitation to the Governments of Powers not represented at the recent Conference but who participated in the Tariff Revision of 1918, to appoint delegates to the Tariff Conference which meets at Shanghai today. Accordingly the American Missions at Christiania, Copenhagen, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro have now been instructed to extend such invitations to the Governments to which they are accredited. In communicating these invitations the Governments concerned are to be notified that the American Government had hoped that the Chinese Government would await ratification of the treaty before convening the Revision Conference and to express the [Page 817] American Government’s regret that it could not, under the circumstances of the early convening of the Conference and the delay in ratifying the treaty, communicate the invitation earlier.
- Julean Arnold, commercial attaché at Peking.↩