No. 1000.
Mr. Bayard to Mr. Magee.
Washington , February 4, 1888.
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 110, of the 16th ultimo, informing the Department that on the 13th ultimo the board of trade of Sweden issued a decree prohibiting the importation of American pork into that Kingdom, unless it be well salted and cured, and that you presume that the board of trade of Norway will issue, if it has not already done so, a similar decree.
If, as you suggest, this action has been taken in consequence of information officially received at the foreign office from the Swedish and Norwegian minister here of the diseased character of American pork, and as the measure seems to arise from an attempt of the Swedish Government to stamp out the disease among swine, admitted to exist in Sweden, and as the enforcement of it is not unduly harsh and does not touch our well salted and cured pork it is not believed that any remonstrance can at present be made against this new decree.
[Page 1475]You will see, however, by Mr. Pendleton’s No. 546,* a copy of which I inclose you, that the German Government has prohibited the importation of Banish, Swedish, and Norwegian pork into Germany, and that there is ground for supposing that Mr. Anderson’s intimation in his No. 168,† a copy of which I likewise inclose, that Germany is using pressure on Norway to exclude American pork, is well founded. You will therefore bear this in mind and keep a vigilant watch on any such possible indirect attempts to injure one of our great exports, using your best endeavors in judicious and likely ways to neutralize such designs.
I send you a number of Congressional documents on this question for your further information, and shall always be glad to have any observations or opinions of your own on this important subject.
I am, etc.,