Proclamation 209—Suspension of Discriminating Duties on Goods Entering the United States on Japanese Vessels

Whereas satisfactory information has been received by me from His Majesty the Emperor of Japan, through an official communication of Mr. Arinori Mori, His Majesty's charge' d'affaires, under date of the 2d instant, that no other or higher duties of tonnage or impost are imposed or levied in the ports of the Empire of Japan upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States or upon the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in the same from the United States or from any foreign country than are levied on Japanese ships and their cargoes in the same ports under like circumstances:

Now, therefore, I, Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by an act of Congress of the 24th day of May, 1828, do hereby declare and proclaim that from and after the said 2d instant, so long as vessels of the United States and their cargoes shall be exempt from discriminating duties as aforesaid, any such duties on Japanese vessels entering the ports of the United States, or on the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in such vessels, shall be discontinued and abolished.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, the 4th day of September, A.D. 1872, and of the Independence of the United States the ninety-seventh.

U. S. GRANT.

By the President:

CHARLES HALE,

Acting Secretary of State.