[Inclosure in No.
82.—Translation.]
Baron von
Rotenhan to Mr. White.
Foreign Office,
Berlin
,
August 30,
1897
.
Referring to the notes of the late ambassador of February 26 and
March 15 last, Nos. 186 and 197, in regard to the tariff levied on
American woods on German state railways, the undersigned has the
honor to inform his excellency the ambassador extraordinary and
plenipotentiary of the United States of America, Mr. Andrew D.
White, that the appropriate home officials, who were at the time
informed as to the contents of aforesaid notes and their inclosures,
do not find themselves in a position, after a renewed investigation
of the matter, to change the tariff rate in the manner desired by
the American interested parties. The same reasons have prevailed in
arriving at this decision which the undersigned had the honor to
place before Mr. Edwin F. Uhl in the note of January 22 last. The
larger number of the civil suits which were instituted by importers
of American woods against the several railway managements, to which
reference was made in the last notes of Mr. Edwin F. Uhl, have, thus
far, terminated in favor of the defendants.
In regard to the shipment of oak wood, which was said to be of
Galician origin, from Hamburg to Lennep, which was referred to, it
is true [Page 246] that the firm in
question, C. Gartner, has won the first suit, but the Royal railway
management of Altona, fortified by the opinion of an expert, will
enter an appeal. That the wood came from Galicia would not of itself
prove that it belonged to that class of oak which is the subject of
cultivation for commercial purposes in Middle European forests, as
is required by the tariff. The possibility still exists that it was
oak of foreign origin, and, as the expert claims, of American
origin, which had been planted as an experiment in Galicia.
The undersigned, under these circumstances, renews the expression of
his regret that the request made can not be complied with. He also
permits himself, in order to prove the incorrectness of Mr. Edwin F.
Uhl’s presumption, that the application of the German railway
freight tariff discriminates against American woods, to call
attention to the fact that poplar wood of American origin, for
instance, is classified with the woods falling under Special Tariff
II, and that the freight is calculated in accordance therewith, for
the reason that American poplar wood is, according to expert
opinion, the same as the poplar wood which is a subject of
cultivation for commercial purposes in Middle European forests.
The inclosures which accompanied Mr. Edwin F. Uhl’s last two notes
are returned herewith.
The undersigned avails himself, etc.
