Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/400

392] and described the award of the Anglo-Venezuelan Arbitration Tribunal at Paris as apparently equally satisfactory to both parties. As to the Philippines, the President said the islands could be abandoned, and opposed the suggestion that the United States should give the islands independence while retaining a protectorate. He did not now recommend any final form of government, but said the truest kindness to the insurgents would be the swift and effective defeat of their leader.

A resolution was adopted, by 302 votes to 30, in the House of Representatives for the appointment of a special committee to examine the case of Mr. Brigham Roberts, whose admission as a member of the House from Utah was objected to on the ground of his being a polygamist.

On December 6 Congress received the annual report of the Secretary of the Treasury, in which it was stated that the revenue for the year ended June 30 was $610,982,094 and the expenditure $700,093,564, showing a deficiency of $89,111,559.

For the current fiscal year the surplus of $40,000,000 was expected. The Secretary's report stated that the commerce of the year had been marked by three especially notable characteristics: (1) A continuation of the phenomenal exports of last year; (2) a moderate increase in importations; and (3) the combined imports and exports formed the largest total ever shown by a single year in the history of the foreign commerce of the United States.

"The total imports of merchandise during the year were $679,148,489, as compared with $616,049,654 in the fiscal year 1898, and $764,730,412 in the fiscal year 1897, being less than in any fiscal year since 1887, with the single exception of 1894, when importations were being held back to obtain advantage of an expected reduction in tariff, and 1898, when they were abnormally low because of excessive importations in the preceding year in anticipation of an increased tariff. The exportations of 1899 were $1,227,023,302, as against $1,231,482,330 in the fiscal year 1898, and $1,050,993,556 in 1897, being the fourth year in our history in which the exports exceeded a billion dollars, and falling but $4,459,028 below those of the phenomenal year 1898, when the supply of breadstuffs abroad was unusually short, and that of the United States unusually large. The total of our foreign commerce for the fiscal year 1899 thus stands at $1,924,171,791, or $66,491,181 greater than in any preceding year.

"Foreign commerce has much more than doubled since 1870, the total of the imports and exports combined being in 1870 but $828,730,176.

"The annual report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration shows that during the fiscal year 1899 there arrived at the ports of the United States and Canada 311,715 immigrants, of whom 297,349 were from Europe, 8,972 from Asia, 51 from Africa, and 5,343 from all other sources, making an increase