No. 40.
Mr. Jag
to Mr. Fish.
Vienna, August 27, 1872. (Received September 12.)
Sir: I herewith transmit to the Department (by the same post with this dispatch) the official list of foreign commissioners to the Vienna Exposition.
* * * * * * *
I have no hesitation in saying that I think it extremely desirable that our republic should be properly represented on this occasion.
While the increasing military preparations in every part of Europe seem to indicate, if not a warlike policy, at least a belief in the necessity and inevitable recurrence of war, with its terriiic burdens in times of peace, as a chronic symptom of the European system, the Vienna Exposition, as its programmes significantly show, is a movement on a scale of unexampled magnitude in the direction of a higher civilization, looking to the elevation and happiness of the masses, and the encouragement of good-will between rival nationalities. In this view, despite the historic fact that former international expositions have been followed by wars, the Vienna Exposition is regarded as coming at a timely moment, to encourage the hope created by the Tribunal at Geneva, that some mode is attainable, consistently with the honor of governments and nations, for the peaceful settlement of international disputes.
While the Vienna Exposition thus accords with American principles, policy, and interests, a due regard to international courtesy and to our own prestige would seem to require that, on such an occasion, when all [Page 62] the powers of the world are to assist, we should appear neither reluct antly nor parsimoniously, but with ready cordiality, and in a manner to give a just idea of our actual progress in science, art, education, and industry.
This view is enforced in no small degree by the importance attributed, it may be, for differing reasons, by the governments and the people of the Old World, to the example of our republic, its popular basis, its stability, and power, its material prosperity, its educational system, its enlarging political and moral influence; but at the present moment it is invested with a special force, by the fact that we propose presently to inaugurate a similar exposition at Philadelphia and to ask the powers of the world to assist in celebrating our centennial birth-year.
I presume nothing would more tend to insure a compliance with our wishes in 1876 than our appearance at Vienna in 1873, with an exposition conveying a just idea of our national progress.
Of the advantages to accrue to our inventors and manufacturers from their representation at Vienna, they require only the facts to enable them to form an intelligent appreciation. A glance at the latest maps of Eastern Europe, and especially of Austria, Hungary, and Russia, (copies of which I send,) showing that Vienna is the center of a fast extending network of railways, and the last commercial depot of Europe from which goods are distributed to the East. This exposition, the first of its kind in Eastern Europe, will not only attract visitors from Western Europe and from all parts of this Empire, but from Russia, the Principalities, Turkey, Egypt, and the farther East.
The extraordinary preparations for the exposition which are being made in Germany and other parts of the continent, and the earnest activity on the subject that is beginning to be shown in England, which has hitherto shown little interest in the matter, seem to indicate that the manufacturers of Europe attach to it a great importance. International commissioners are beginning to assemble at Vienna, to facilitate their arrangements, and the German commissioners as early as April engaged for their personal accommodation an apartment with nearly thirty rooms.
* * * * * * *
In one branch of the exposition, that of education, Baron Sehwarz-Senborn relies confidently upon the assistance of the United States, and a similar hope has been expressed to me by Count Andrassy, and the Barons Von Hoffmann and Orczy of the foreign office.
I have, &c,