But the question whether Article XXIX is in force has less practical importance than has been supposed, for it does not, if in force, place any restraints upon the United States as to the method of dealing with imported merchandise destined for the United States arriving at a Canadian port for transportation to the United States, or of merchandise passing through Canadian territory from one place in the United States to another.  It would be no infraction either of the letter or of the spirit of the treaty if we should stop, unload, and carefully inspect every vehicle arriving at our border with such merchandise; nor, on the other hand, would Canada violate her obligations under the treaty by a like treatment of merchandise imported through the port of New York on its arrival in Canada.  Neither Government has placed itself under any restraint as to merchandise intended for the use of its own people when such merchandise comes within its own territory.  The question, therefore, as to how we shall deal with merchandise imported by our own people through a Canadian port and with merchandise passing from one place in the United States to another through Canadian territory is wholly one of domestic policy and law.

I turn now to consider the legislation of Congress upon this subject, upon which, as it seems to me, the duties of the Treasury and the rights of our people as to those phases of the transportation question to which I have just alluded wholly depend.  Sections 3005 and 3006 of the Revised Statutes, which are taken from the act of July 28, 1866, entitled “An act to protect the revenue, and for other purposes” (14 U.S.  Statutes at Large, p. 328), are as follows: 

SEC. 3005.  All merchandise arriving at the ports of New York, Boston, Portland in Maine, or any other port specially designated by the Secretary of the Treasury, and destined for places in the adjacent British Provinces, or arriving at the port of [Point Isabel] [Brownsville] in Texas, or any other port specially designated by the Secretary of the Treasury, and destined for places in the Republic of Mexico, may be entered at the custom-house and conveyed in transit through the territory of the United States without the payment of duties, under such regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe.

SEC. 3006.  Imported merchandise in bond, or duty paid, and products or manufactures of the United States, may, with the consent of the proper authorities of the British Provinces or Republic of Mexico, be transported from one port in the United States to another port therein, over the territory of such Provinces or Republic, by such routes and under such rules, regulations, and conditions as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe; and the merchandise so transported shall, upon arrival in the United States from such Provinces or Republic, be treated in regard to the liability to or exemption from duty or tax as if the transportation had taken place entirely within the limits of the United States.

Section 3102 of the Revised Statutes is also related to this subject, and is as follows: