No. 259.
Mr. Morton
to Mr. Blaine.
Legation of
the United States,
Paris, November 7, 1881.
(Received November 23.)
No. 69.]Sir: Referring to my dispatch No. 54, of date
October 13, 1881, stating that I had called on Mr. B. St. Hilaire to
ascertain what action Mr. Tirard, minister of agriculture and commerce, had
taken in relation to American pork, I have now the honor to transmit a copy
and translation of a dispatch of the French minister of foreign affairs
giving the information desired. Mr. Tirard says, through his colleague, that
his department has prepared a bill to give the authority of law to certain
measures which will render possible the revocation of the decree of
prohibition.
I have been unable to procure a copy of the bill, but I am informed that it
will not tend to facilitate the importation of salted meats from the United
States. One of the largest French importers of American meats, who has had
the privilege of glancing over the bill, says that the measures proposed are
so vexatious that he would prefer the decree of prohibition to the proposed
bill.
It will, I fear, be impossible to secure from the present minister of
agriculture and commerce the abrogation or any satisfactory modification of
the decree of February 18, 1881.
I have, &c.,
[Inclosure in No.
69.—Translation.]
Mr. B. St. Hilaire
to Mr. Morton.
Sir: You have done me the honor, in a recent
interview, to express the desire to know, as soon as possible, the
result of the examination of the question of the importation of American
salted meats into France by the proper administration.
I have hastened to recommend this matter to the particular attention of
the minister of agriculture and commerce. In reply to this
communication, Mr. Tirard declares that his department studied the
measures destined, whilst protecting the interests of public health, to
render possible the revocation of the prohibition pronounced by the
decree of the 18th of last February; but it is necessary that these
measures be sanctioned by a law, the draft of which consequently be
submitted very shortly to the notification of parliament.
I am pleased, sir, in referring to the letter which I had occasion to
address on the same subject to Mr. Pomeroy, the 19th of last July, to
renew to you the expression Of the ardent desire which the French
Government experiences to give, in this circumstance, every satisfaction
to the legitimate interests of international commerce. The economic
views of the government of the republic can only, besides, contribute to
favor between France and the United States the development of their
trade; but he regrets to state that the custom-house legislation of the
Union opposes to it very numerous difficulties. He would be happy, I
hardly require to say, to meet in the Federal Government a disposition
which would permit the amelioration under this head of the commercial
relations between the two countries, and to place them more completely
in harmony with the state of their political relations.
Accept, &c.,
