No. 663.
Mr. Stevens to Mr. Blaine.

No. 106.]

Sir: It is well that I should report to the Secretary of State what has been done at this legation to safeguard American pork interests against the alarm and prejudice caused by the recent prohibitory edicts of some of the European governments.

Soon after the action of the French Government in this regard had become generally well known in this country, I was called on by several Stockholm merchants, heavily engaged in the American pork trade, who informed me of the extent of the injury which the French edict and the alarm on the subject were causing their trade, and asked if my government would take any effective steps to counteract the damaging rumors and charges in general circulation in European countries as to American swine. I suggested that a few days or weeks were necessary for the operation of the laws of reaction and self-cure, and that as soon as the United States Government took any action they and the Swedish public should be informed thereof. Soon after the dispatch of the Secretary of State to Ministers Lowell and Noyes was received at this legation, in the New York Tribune and Boston Journal, I had the same translated into Swedish, accompanied by supplementary facts brought in the investigations at Chicago, such as were deemed strongly defensive of the American pork interest, and had the same signed by the United States consul of this consular district and published in the Stockholm newspapers. I forwarded the same document to our consul at Gottenburg, who signed the same and published it in the Gottenburg newspapers. The Stockholm and Gottenburg consuls, at my suggestion, sent the same document to the consular agents in their respective districts tor publication in like manner.

In the way thus indicated the American side of the swine and pork question has become quite well known to the Swedish public. I think [Page 1071] also the views of the United States Government as expressed by the Secretary of State, and the substantial facts brought out at Chicago, tending to safeguard American interests, have become tolerably well known in Norway through the press, necessarily encountering, of course, the prejudices and interests of the pork producers of that country, precisely as the American statement has encountered like prejudice and interests in Sweden, as in the other European countries.

I have, &c.,

JOHN L. STEVENS.