Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 5, 1881
No. 415.
Mr. Marsh
to Mr. Evarts.
Rome, March 14, 1881. (Received April 2.)
Sir: I have the honor to inclose to you herewith copies of the correspondence between this legation and the consulate of the United States at Genoa, and between the legation and the ministry of foreign affairs, relating to the importation into Italy of pork from America. Having no instructions or other precise information on the subject, I have not replied to the minister’s note.
I have, &c.,
Mr. Hazelton to Mr. Marsh.
Genoa, February 5, 1881.
Sir: I have the honor to forward a letter from Messrs. Granet, Brown & Co., of this city, asking your influence with the Italian Government in obtaining the repeal of the law prohibiting the importation of pork into Italy.
This house carries on a large trade with the United States in petroleum, and is one of the most reliable business establishments in Genoa.
I think that the statements contained in the inclosed letter are substantially correct, and that if the aforesaid law is repealed an important trade in hams and bacon will be the result. The price of meat in Genoa is very high, the common people being unable to enjoy it except on rare occasions—perhaps four or five times a year. If it can be imported without an excessive duty, it will result in a substantial benefit to the consumer as well as the dealer.
I am, &c.,
Consul.
Messrs. Granet, Brown & Co. to Mr. Marsh.
Sir: At the request of many commercial houses in this city and in the United States of America, who, like ourselves, are interested in the trade in American bacon and hog products, we beg to submit the following facts to your notice:
About a year ago the Italian Government, on the assumption that the importation of bacon, hams, and other raw American meat was injurious to the public health, [Page 655] absolutely prohibited the importation of the same into this country. The consequence of this prohibition, promoted, as it probably was, by a few parties interested in excluding the competition of imported provisions with native produce, is that an active and daily increasing trade with the United States has been arbitrarily suppressed without adequate grounds, to the manifest detriment of trade, to the receipts of the Italian customs, and especially to the interests of the generally consuming public.
It is unnecessary for us here to draw your excellency’s attention to the character of the pleas upon which the suppression of this trade is based, confused as they are by the statistics of the very large and in every tense healthy trade existing in American hog produce with all other European countries, nor need we appeal to the principles of fairness and reciprocal advantage to trade which we judge to be violated by this legislation. We beg, however, to inclose a memorandum containing some statistics with reference to the matter which was distributed last year in Genoa.
Finally we beg leave to appeal to your excellency to beg that your influence may be used to have our case presented in the proper quarter with the Italian Government in Rome, in the interest of your American compatriots, and with a view to obtaining the prompt repeal of the prohibition to trade in the said important produce of the United States.
With which request we have the honor to remain, yours, &c.,
Mr. Marsh to Mr. Cairoli.
Rome, February 21, 1881.
Your Excellency: Through the consulate of the United States at Genoa, I have received communications from persons at that port interested in the American trade, complaining of certain recent alleged custom-house or government regulations as greatly restricting if not entirely abolishing the liberty of importation of salted, smoked, or otherwise preserved pork from the United States, which has become an important branch of trade between America and the European ports.
This legation has never been officially notified of any obstruction or impediment, local or general, to this trade, and I respectfully ask, for information of my government and of American shippers, when and by what authority, superior or administrative, the decrees in question, if such exist, were issued; whether they are absolute or conditional; whether they are limited as to time or place, or are permanent and general in their application, and whether it is thought to have been established by official investigation that any prejudicial consequences to the public health have resulted from the importation and consumption of such meats.
I avail, &c.,
Mr. Peiroleri to Mr. Marsh.
Rome, February 28, 1881.
Mr. Minister: In reply to your note of the 21st instant, I hasten to inform you that, since the beginning of the year 1879, it having been ascertained that pork affected by trichinæ had arrived in the kingdom coming from Cincinnati and other parts of the American Union, where that disease was proved to exist, the ministry of the interior prohibited, by a sanitary order dated February 20 of the same year, No. 5, the importation of swine as well as of their flesh or any parts of their body, in whatever manner prepared or preserved, exported from the United States of America.
On finding afterwards that pork was brought into the kingdom by way of land coming from places where trichinæ existed, the prohibition by a succeeding order, dated May 6, 1879, No. 13, was extended to foreign pork coming from any place whatever, even by way of land.
Notwithstanding the earnest remonstrance of the trade, which called for the revocation of that measure, the aforementioned ministry, after having several times taken the advice of the superior board of health for guidance in their decision, concluded that the moment for the rescinding of that prohibition would not have come until the information received was such as to mitigate the gravity of the disease.
[Page 656]Only last year the aforesaid board was requested to examine again the subject; but in their meeting of the 30th of June the board expressed the opinion that in the interest of the public health the prohibition should be maintained absolute and general so long as assurances were not forthcoming such as to give reason to believe that all danger of infection had ceased.
In view of this opinion so emphatically expressed by the first sanitary body of the state, and no information having been received on the subject in any way satisfactory, the government of the King could not but determine, nor could it do otherwise, to enforce firmly the prohibition imposed by the order before cited until the receipt of such information as would relieve it of all responsibility in a matter of such serious importance.
In transmitting to you herewith inclosed a copy of the order of May 6, 1879, I avail myself of this occasion, &c.,
For the minister: