Mr. Ewing to Mr.
Olney.
Legation of the United States,
Brussels, April 23, 1896.
(Received May 2.)
No. 179.]
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the
receipt of your dispatch of April 1, 1896 (No. 200), and also of your
dispatch of April 10, 1896 (No. 203), on the subject of the importation
of American cattle into Belgium.
I had already, in personal interviews, called the attention of the
minister for foreign affairs of Belgium to the matter as discussed in
the Chamber of Representatives to which you have called my attention,
and especially to the reasons given by the minister for agriculture and
public works for opening the frontiers of Belgium to the importation of
cattle from the Netherlands. I have to day addressed another
communication on the subject to M. de Favereau, the present minister for
foreign affairs, of which I transmit herewith a copy.
You will notice that my communications of August 22, 1895, and of
December 19, 1895, remain unanswered. I adhere to the opinion expressed
to you in my dispatch of December 19, 1895 (No. 165).
The status of the question remains unchanged since that date.
I will add that in a recent personal interview I was assured that the
matter would receive prompt attention.
I have, etc.,
[Inclosure in No. 179.]
Mr. Ewing to
Mr. de Favereau.
Legation of the United States,
Brussels, April 23, 1896.
Mr. Minister: As early as August 25, 1894,
a correspondence commenced between your excellency’s office and this
legation with reference to the exclusion of American cattle from
Belgium, and I beg to call your
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attention to that correspondence, and
especially to my communication of August 22, 1895, and to my
communication of December 19, 1895, both of which remain
unanswered.
I also respectfully ask your excellency’s attention to my
communication of October 3, 1894, addressed to His Excellency Count
de Mérode Westerloo, the then minister for foreign affairs of
Belgium, in which he was pleased to say:
In transmitting to your excellency two copies of the text of
this decree, I wish to give you the assurance that the
Government of the King will not fail to waive the new
measure as soon as circumstances will permit to do so.
Fifteen months have elapsed since this assurance was given, and I
have failed by all reasonable efforts to ascertain the intention of
the Belgian Government with reference to the subject-matter of my
various communications.
By virtue of a ministerial order of the 26th day of November, 1895,
the frontiers of Belgium were opened to the importation of cattle
from the Netherlands, under the provisions of which many thousand
cattle have been and are being imported from Holland into Belgium,
and that order remains in full force while the importation of cattle
from the United States of America is absolutely prohibited.
My Government is very reluctantly forced to the conclusion that these
conditions create an unfavorable discrimination against American
products which alike contravene the spirit and letter of the
commercial treaty of March 8, 1875, between Belgium and the United
States of America.
I am in receipt of explicit instructions from my Government to
ascertain whether the Belgian Government is willing to remove any
discrimination which may now be made against the importation of
American cattle in favor of those imported from the Netherlands or
any other countries.
I pray your excellency to accept, etc.,
