No. 352.
Mr. Read
to Mr. Fish.
Athens, May 10, 1874. (Received June 1.)
Sir: The Department will notice in the communication inclosed in my No. 21 an allusion to the increase of the duty upon dried currants. I seized the occasion a few days since to say to the minister of foreign affairs that I was not aware that final action had been taken by Congress upon the question, and that I had written to my Government as early as the 2d of April recommending the subject to its most favorable consideration. [See my No. 15 to the Department.] A paragraph has since appeared in the Greek papers setting forth the fact, and within the last forty-eight hours several of the principal journals of Athens have mentioned in terms of warm praise the action of the American minister. Dried currants and oil are the two principal articles exported from Greece. The question of the amount of tariff duty to be imposed by the United States Government upon the former is, therefore, one of absorbing interest here.
I have, &c.,