No. 326.
Mr. Anderson to Mr. Bayard.
Copenhagen, November 17, 1887. (Received December 5.)
Sir: Acknowledging the receipt of your dispatch No. 62, dated November 1, and referring to my No. 156, I have the honor to report the following: A prominent pork-packer here in very good standing sent two cargoes of pork to Paris, where the article found a ready market at a good price. Encouraged by this he sent a cargo to Bordeaux, but this was confiscated, after a specimen of it had been sent to Paris for examination and it had been decided that it was American pork, a fact which occasioned the confiscation.
The Danish exporter declares, upon his honor, that the hogs were not American and were slaughtered by himself. He is willing to support this statement by his oath. A complaint has been made at the Danish foreign office and a correspondence is now being carried on between the Danish and French Governments anent the matter. A pork plague is now raging in southern Sweden and about Copenhagen, a fact which may lead to an exclusion of Danish pork from Germany and other countries. It may be that after this exclusion has taken place, Germany will not again open her doors to Danish pork unless Denmark shuts her doors against the American product. I have read your inclosures accompanying your dispatch No, 62, concerning the pork question between the United States and Germany and France, and had a conversation [Page 479] yesterday with the director-general of the Danish foreign office. He assured me that there was no disposition whatever on the part of Denmark to exclude American pork, and that no arguments pro or contra, were necessary. The Danish export of pork to Germany amounts to about $5,333,000 annually.
It is apparent that Denmark can not sacrifice the $5,333,000 of export for the sake of admitting American pork.
I have, etc.,