this purpose, a special court may be authorized, with power to hear
and decide such claims of the character referred to as may have
arisen under treaties and the public law. Conventions for adjusting
the claims by joint commission have been proposed to some
governments, but no definitive answer to the proposition has yet been
received from any.

In the course of the session I shall probably have occasion to
request you to provide indemnification to claimants where decrees of
restitution have been rendered and damages awarded by admiralty
courts, and in other cases where this government may be acknowledged
to be liable in principle and where the amount of that liability has
been ascertained by an informal arbitration.

The proper officers of the Treasury have deemed themselves required
by the law of the United States upon the subject to demand a tax upon
the incomes of foreign consuls in this country. While such a demand
may not in strictness be in derogation of public law, or perhaps of
any existing treaty between the United States and a foreign country,
the expediency of so far modifying the act as to exempt from tax the
income of such consuls as are not citizens of the United States,
derived from the emoluments of their office or from property not
situated in the United States, is submitted to your serious
consideration. I make this suggestion upon the ground that a comity
which ought to be reciprocated exempts our consuls in all other
countries from taxation to the extent thus indicated. The United
States, I think, ought not to be exceptionally illiberal to
international trade and commerce.

The operations of the Treasury during the last year have been