I transmit herewith a full copy of this communication and beg leave to call
the Secretary’s attention to a few considerations which influenced me in
drafting it.
I deemed it wise to recall the history of my predecessor’s efforts to
anticipate and prevent any action by His Majesty’s Government. This
recapitulation seemed valuable, as bringing into a single paper, for the
convenience of all, the whole case as it stands to-day, and still more
valuable as forcing the attention of the minister to the fact that the
results of the examination strangely confirmed all the representations Mr.
Kasson had made of his individual knowledge and belief.
I thought this history would also show with what zeal we had labored to
escape from threatened injustice, and with what patience, under confidence
of final redress, we bore the injustice when inflicted. Attention was also
called to the spirit, the methods, and the results of the investigation,
seriatim—the value of the conclusions depending so much upon the impartial
and thorough search for the facts from which they are logically deduced.
The declarations of the Department as to the spirit of fairness and
impartiality in which the investigation was inaugurated, were so frank and
bold that I had no hesitation in repeating this assurance in the strongest
terms; and the processes of the examination were so wise, comprehensive, and
searching, that it was a pleasure to call them to attention. The results I
endeavored to sum briefly and clearly, and, in sending them copies of the
report, challenged them to find these results other than those properly
deduced from the evidence accompanying them. Nor did I neglect to call
attention to the gratifying action of the Belgian and Swiss
Governments—taking care, as I was without official information, to qualify
the assurance in the case of Switzerland.
In conclusion I called attention again to the patience we had shown in
bearing an unnecessary restriction to our trade, to the quiet energy and
transparent good faith in which the investigation was conducted, and to our
exhibition of entire confidence in His Majesty’s Government’s readiness to
undo the wrong, so soon as convinced that its view of the facts was
incorrect, by refusing, except by allusion as a necessary pleading to save
future rights, to urge the unpleasant charge that the restriction complained
of was a gross violation of the fifth article of our treaty of commerce of
1829.
I hope the honorable Secretary will not be displeased with the position I
have taken and the manner in which I have stated it; and if he shall find
that any expressions in the communication to His Majesty’s minister exhibit
less than diplomatic indifference, that he will consider how inadequately
they represent the impatience with which one bears restrictions upon trade
so harmful and yet so needless.
[Inclosure in No. 6.]
Mr. Phelps to
Minister for Foreign
Affairs.
Legation of the United States,
Vienna, July 2,
1881.
The undersigned, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the
United States, as preliminary to certain requests lie has been
instructed earnestly to address to the Imperial and Royal Government of
Austria and Hungary, begs leave to recall to the recollection of his
excellency the minister of foreign affairs certain past facts and
circumstances connected with the subject, and to present certain new
ones.
On the 28th day of February last, Mr. Kasson, then the representative of
the United States at this court, solicited and obtained the honor of a
personal interview with the imperial and royal minister of foreign
affairs. He sought this interview in a laudable desire to prevent, if
possible, any governmental action which should restrict or prohibit the
trade in American swine-meat. There were rumors that such action was
thought of, and confident, from his own knowledge of the subject, that
it was unnecessary and would work injustice, he hoped, by a frank
communication of his views, to bring the Austro-Hungarian Government to
the same conclusion. It was important to anticipate and prevent action,
for if once taken, though it were immediately revoked, it could not fail
to excite suspicion and fear in the minds of ignorant consumers, and so
injure the trade.
He made a memorandum of some of the points which he urged in this
interview, and by request transmitted it to the ministry of foreign
affairs.
A glance at that memorandum, doubtless still on its files, will show
that, on personal knowledge and belief, Mr. Kasson urged that the
popular outcry against American pork was the work of speculators on the
two continents, who had skillfully manipulated the press for that
purpose.
That for their selfish purposes, false news, even when of a kind which
would be easily and directly contradicted, was of value; and cited the
familiar fact that the price of American pork, which fell when the
newspapers reported a French family as ill from eating American pork,
remained low and did not rise upon announcement, after official
examination, that the pork was not American after all, but French; that
it was in Germany that Americans first heard of trichinosis; that animal
and unclean food was a necessary condition of the disease, and yet in
America, and in America only, was the food of the swine confined to
Indian corn, the cleanest of vegetable products.
These considerations were urged by Mr. Kasson, it will be remembered, on
his own knowledge and belief. On the next day his convictions were
strengthened by the receipt of a telegraphic dispatch from the Secretary
of State telling him that he was authorized by his government to deny
the reports of disease among American hogs. This telegram—under the
promptings of the zeal he had already displayed to save His Majesty’s
Government from what seemed to him a needless and unjust act—he
communicated immediately to the minister of foreign affairs, and
included in the same communication, from information otherwise obtained,
the fact that more German and Servian pork had been condemned for
trichinæ than American, and that in Vienna itself hams from Westphalia
had been examined and condemned for this disease.
Mr. Kasson’s hopes and efforts to avert what seemed to him an error and a
wrong were in vain.
On the 10th of March the joint ministries of the interior, of commerce,
and of finance signed, and on the 16th of the same month published, an
ordinance which, immediately and without notice, prohibited the
importation of the American hog in any form in the Austro-Hungarian
monarchy. The prohibition was simple and direct. It gave no reason, and
it included in the proscription the hog product of no other country.
Mr. Kasson immediately, on the 8th of March, forwarded to His Majesty’s
minister of foreign affairs a courteous but firm protest against this
action as unnecessary, invidious, and in violation of treaty
obligations; unnecessary, because the cause, if
as conjectured it was disease, had not been shown to exist in American
pork, or if shown not shown to exist in greater degree in American than
in other pork; invidious, because the ordinance,
notwithstanding, excluded none other than American pork, and a violation
of the obligations of the treaty of 1829, which demand that there “shall
be no prohibition on imports from the United States which shall not
equally extend to all other nations.”
To this protest His Majesty’s minister of foreign affairs made, on the
29th day of March, courteous reply, informing Mr. Kasson that the
prohibition was on sanitary grounds, and giving reasons why, in the
judgment of his excellency, it was not considered by His Majesty’s
government any infraction of the treaty.
To the American Government this reply was unsatisfactory, as it assumed
the fact of disease in American pork which the American Government did
not believe to be a fact; ignored the fact, which seemed to be fairly
proven, that the disease did exist in other pork, and offered as reasons
why the exclusive prohibition of American pork was not in contravention
of the treaty, only considerations grounded on these disputed facts as
premises.
[Page 59]
And yet the Government of the United States submitted in silence, and
since the ordinance, the protest, and the reply, neither Mr. Kasson nor
his successors in this legation have, by oral or written applications,
vexed His Majesty’s government with applications for reconsideration and
redress.
To save annoyance to His Majesty’s government, and in reliance on its
good faith and its cordial desire to do no harm to a friendly country,
the American legation preferred to await the result of an investigation
which the Department of State had ordered to be made concerning the
truth or untruth of the alarming rumors which have prevailed of late as
to the alleged unwholesomeness of the pork products shipped to foreign
countries from the United States.
This investigation is now finished, and the results of it have been sent
to this legation. The results so fully confirm all that Mr. Kasson
claimed in the premises that the undersigned deems it his duty to lay
them immediately before his excellency, and to ask for them that prompt
consideration their importance demands.
It may be proper, before submitting these results, to call your
excellency’s attention to the spirit in which the
investigation was inaugurated and the method and
processes of its conduct.
The officer in charge was instructed “to make a searching and impartial
investigation,” and the Secretary of State affirms “that the
investigation was undertaken in the most impartial spirit, and in full
recognition of the weighty responsibility which rested upon the
government.” Could more be said for the spirit in
which the work was begun?
The methods adopted to complete it were such as
were best calculated to obtain the sole object of the
examination—discovery of the truth.
The examination was in public, in a country where the newspapers report
everything and everybody reads the newspapers, and the subject of
examination was a branch of trade so general and important as to attract
the attention of all.
The examination was comprehensive, not restricted or local. It did not
confine itself to a single city nor to the witnesses that could be
brought to a single hall. It went forth and sought its witnesses
everywhere that no restrictions of person or place might narrow and
color its discoveries. It sought those engaged in the different branches
of trade and so conspicuous in it, that they knew their words would be
read by hundreds of rivals and thousands of employés whose personal
knowledge would, on the spot, convict them of any attempt at
concealment, prevarication, or falsehood. But not to those who raised
swine, to those who slaughtered them, to those who packed them, to those
who forwarded them was the examination confined. It was not limited to
those of whom it could be said “They are in the trade and sordidly
interested.” Guardians of the public health, officers in chambers of
commerce and boards of trade, high officials in railway management,
economists and scientists of high reputation voluntarily, or by request,
contributed their knowledge and experience to this exhaustive
investigation.
In considering the conditions under which it was held your excellency
cannot attach too much importance to this consideration. The market
value of the staple must rise or fall with the nature of the evidence
given. Many of those who gave the evidence were in a position where some
would gain by a rise and some by a fall in the price, and yet, in the
bright light of the publicity, where workmen, clerks, partners, and
rivals were to hear each word, none dared to tell anything except the
truth, and the truth all pointed to the same conclusion: The strange
exemption of the American full-grown and marketable hog from
disease.
Having called his excellency’s attention to the methods of the investigation the undersigned begs briefly to
sum the results.
The swine in America is fed on Indian corn or maize, the cleanest of
vegetable products.
American swine are not more liable to disease than European.
That diseased hogs cannot pass the inspection preliminary to slaughter,
or if this is possible, hog-meat cannot pass even the most careless
inspection.
That merchantable lard cannot be produced from diseased animals.
That Chicago and Cincinnati—the great pork-consuming centers—are free
from trichinosis.
That in all reported cases of human suffering it has been found that the
pork was eaten uncooked.
That the hogs selected for the foreign market are equal to those selected
for the home market.
That the rumors of great disease in American swine came from the confused
use of the words “hog” and “pig.” A hog is a grown swine ready for
market. A pig is a young, ungrown swine, not of age for the market. And
it is among young swine, that is, among pigs, that the larger proportion
of deaths by disease occur.
As the investigation was public, so are the facts elicited by it and the
conclusions derived from them—public for the purpose of challenging the
widest criticism. The American Goverment has published them in pamphlet
form and desires to secure for [Page 60]
them a large circulation. The undersigned has the honor to transmit
herewith four copies of this pamphlet, and begs your excellency’s
careful attention to the contents. He would be gratified if he might
trouble his excellency to make such disposition of the extra copies as
will the more speedily bring them to the attention of those officers or
ministers peculiarly interested in the subject.
Before addressing the request, which would naturally follow this
presentation of the subject, the undersigned has the honor to suggest
that if any doubt remain as to the value and truth of the results
obtained by this investigation, it should not be forgotten that they are
confirmed by the action of the Belgian Government. This government,
disregarding popular clamor and unscientific prejudice, examined the
question fairly upon its merits and reached the conclusions to which the
American Government was irresistibly led, that, of the widely-spread
food staples of the world’s commerce, none is grown, packed, and
exported under conditions better calculated to assure safety and
wholesomeness than the pork product of America.
Nor will his excellency have failed to notice that Viennese journals
report that the Swiss Government has followed the example of Belgium in
removing all restrictions upon the importation of American pork.
In conclusion, the undersigned hopes his excellency will find ample
apology for the length of this communication in the importance of the
subject, one that concerns an important branch of American trade, and a
restriction which his government believes to be unjust, invidious, and
in violation of the treaty of commerce so long existing between the two
nations; and he begs leave to inform his excellency that he is
instructed by his government to bring these facts earnestly to the
attention of the Austro-Hungarian Government, and to ask, in view of
them, an abandonment or very material modification of the oppressive
measures which have been adopted by His Majesty’s government in regard
to the American pork trade. He is further instructed by the honorable
Secretary of State to say that the entire good faith with which this
investigation has been conducted warrants the American Government in
expecting that the government of His Imperial and Royal Majesty will
accept and act upon the results in equal good faith.
The undersigned ventures to hope that in the consideration of this
request your excellency will have in mind the patience with which a
restriction—seeming to the American Government so unnecessary and
unjust—has been borne; the promptitude, thoroughness, and good faith in
which it put itself to the task of gathering arguments which should
convince others of a needlessness and injustice, so patent to itself,
and that in reliance upon the disposition of His Majesty’s government to
instantly remove a restriction which seemed unfriendly and harsh, so
soon as convinced that it was unnecessary, it has avoided any allusion,
except in the protest (where mention was made of it, that the right to
plead it might not be lost), to the view the American Government
believes it might take of a restriction which singles out an important
product which America shall not import into Austria-Hungary, but all
other countries may, as a plain and palpable violation of the treaty of
1829, and bearing these evidences of American patience, faith, and
good-will in mind, that your excellency will be pleased to give this
matter prompt attention.
The undersigned takes this opportunity to express to his excellency the
imperial and royal minister of foreign affairs his most distinguished
consideration.
