[Inclosure No. 292.]
Mr. Phelps to
Freiherr von
Rotenhan
.
Legation of the United States,
Berlin
,
July 6,
1891
.
Referring to the “Regulations for the safe transport of cattle from the
United States to foreign countries,” of which a copy was sent to the
foreign office on the 24th of June last, the undersigned, envoy, etc.,
of the United States of America, wishes to call the attention of
Freiherr von Rotenhan, acting secretary of state for foreign affairs, to
the fact that this body of regulations completes a code for the
inspection and care of domestic animals on sea and land and for the food
produced from them which is more extensive and Complete than anything of
the kind ever before attempted.
The undersigned takes especial pleasure in informing the undersecretary
of state that, of this code, those regulations which provide for the
inspection of live hogs and the carcasses and products of these animals
are now in successful operation, and that the pork inspected under them
will be ready for exportation by September 1.
It is the object of this note to give this information and to ask if the
German Government will he ready at that time to admit it. It seems to
the President but a reasonable expectation that by that date the German
markets should be opened to that American product. The German market had
been originally closed to it and kept so under allegations of its
unhealthfulness, which the Government of the United States never
admitted, and which the experience of the American people, large and
constant consumers of pork, disproved. Upon conviction, however, that
the German Government was sincere in this opinion, and upon its repeated
assurance that it excluded this product for no other reason, Congress
passed an act which provided an inspection which should meet this
objection.
The provisions of this act were not strict enough to satisfy the scruples
of the German Government, and Congress passed a second act, now in
force, and embodied in it every provision which was said to be lacking
in the first. This act may be described as one containing every
safeguard against disease which science suggested. Inspection is
compulsory and made universal throughout the United States. The swine is
examined before slaughter, and his body after slaughter, by the
microscope, and the products which have passed examination are marked
and identified through all stages of subsequent preparation for market.
The chief inspectors employed in the examination are men tried in
veterinary science, and the microscopists are under the direction of
experienced scientists of that line. The only ground for refusing to the
United States a right of commerce now extended to all other nations
having thus been completely removed by an inspection which involves
large expenditure, which was undertaken avowedly in order to satisfy the
objections raised by the German Government, it seems unnecessary to urge
upon the acting secretary of state the policy of meeting promptly and in
the same spirit the advances of a friendly [Page 515] Government, which feels that in this instance it
has not been treated like other nations. It would seem that the 1st of
September were a proper date to renew a trade which is sure to be
beneficial to both peoples, and that prompt notice of the fact should be
given, that the large interests affected by this peaceful revolution may
provide for it.
The undersigned avails, etc.,
