No. 443.
Mr. Lowell to Mr. Evarts.

No. 149.]

Sir: The successful importation of a cargo of American wheat at Barcelona, to which our consul at that port, Mr. Scheuch, has called your attention, has given rise to prolonged discussion in the Spanish press. This discussion has naturally turned upon the old question of free trade and protection; but has incidently raised others of some importance to the United States.

The general question is complicated here as with us by conflicting interests, and here as with us the different interests that desire protection, however hostile to each other on certain points, combine in the Cortes in favor of high duties. In the present case the Catalonians, though in favor of protective duties for their own manufactures, are in favor also of cheap flour for their operatives, and though the duties, amounting to five pesetas and eighty-two centimos (p. 5.82), have not prevented the consignees (it is said) from selling their wheat at a profit, they are yet enough to enable speculators in Spanish wheat to put a higher price upon it.

The newspapers comment on the absurdity of protecting a product which, without protection, could not compete with one of equal or better quality brought from a great distance, and still more on the folly of imposing heavy duties upon American wheat in the Antilles, in order to encourage a crop less profitable than that of the vine, and less adapted to the soil.

These considerations have led to the renewed expression, in various quarters, of the desire that a commercial treaty should be concluded between Spain and the United States by a modification of their respective tariffs to the advantage of both.

The excellent quality of the American wheat is admitted on all hands, and also that it produces a flour of which bread can be made of the particular consistency and flavor agreeable to Spanish palates.

That this branch of trade might become important may be inferred from the fact that the foreign importation of wheat from all quarters during 1878 is said to have amounted to three and a half million dollars, and this mainly since the month of September last.

I have, &c.,

J. R. LOWELL.