No. 194.
Mr. Marsh
to Mr. Frelinghuysen.
Rome, May 19, 1882. (Received June 5.)
Sir: The commercial treaty between Italy and France, recently negotiated by the diplomatic representatives of those countries, has been submitted to the two houses of the Italian Parliament, and, after discussion, has been finally approved. I have refrained from making it the subject of a dispatch because it has not yet been officially promulgated or otherwise made public in any authentic form. I shall send copies of this treaty to the State Department as soon as it issues from the press. Its * * * approval was pressed by the ministry partly for political reasons as well as on economical grounds, and its approval will doubtless have a beneficial effect on the mutual relations between the two countries.
[Page 368]It has at least one advantage over the treaty of 1863, in having been thoroughly examined and publicly discussed, which can hardly be said of the former. The treaty of 1863 was scarcely discussed at all.
Of course I am not yet prepared to speak of the bearing of the provisions of the new treaty upon the commercial or the industrial interests of Italy, but I have no reason to suppose that any of them are of a character injuriously to affect the fair competition of American producers, whether agricultural or industrial.
In the mean time the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary movements in Egypt and in other northern provinces of Africa, which are every day assuming a new aspect and threaten to jeopardize the large Italian interests in those countries, are exciting much anxious feeling.* * * At any rate, many of the questions involved in the recent international action of the countries bordering upon the Mediterranean will soon imperiously demand a solution.* * *
I have, &c.,