Mr. von Reichenau to Mr. Olney.
Washington , December 4, 1896 .
Mr. Secretary of State: I have the honor to acknowledge to your excellency the receipt of the esteemed communication of the 3d instant, and the six copies of the proclamation of the President of the United States of the same date inclosed therein, by which the proclamation of January 26, 1888, concerning the exemption from tonnage dues of German ships in ports of the United States is revoked.
[Page 163]Pursuant to instructions I hasten to submit the following statement:
If the exemption hitherto of German ships from American tonnage dues, for which the Dingley shipping act of June 19, 1886, forms the legal basis, has become irksome [inconvenient] to the United States Government, it may alter that law. The Imperial Government could not enter protest. The present proclamation of the President, how ever, should he, as the Imperial Government must expect, have been fully informed of the contents of its memorandum transmitted on the 1st instant to the United States Ambassador, Mr. Edwin Uhl, upon his request, would only be defensible on the ground of the imputation [supposition] that the official declarations which were made in 1888 by the Imperial envoy and now by the Imperial secretary of state for foreign affairs are not in accordance with the facts.
Against such an imputation [supposition] the Imperial Government enters its most emphatic protest, and again reiterates, summing up these declarations, that in German ports no ship’s dues which correspond in nature and purport to American tonnage dues are levied either by the Empire or by the separate States.
Accept, etc.,