Baron Fava to Mr. Sherman.
Washington, D. C., May 26, 1897.
Mr. Secretary of State: The Government, of the King, to which I hastened (as I stated to your excellency in my note of the 16th of March last) to communicate the observations of the honorable Secretary of the Treasury (Agriculture) relative to the ministerial sanitary decree of January 26, 1897, which requires a consular visé for the certificates of origin issued by American authorities, and accompanying shipments of meat, has now informed me that the question will be submitted for examination to the zootechnic and epizootic board at one of its next sessions. His Majesty’s Government, however, desires to perform a friendly act toward that of the United States by frankly forewarning it that could it in no case be induced to modify the provisions contained in the aforesaid decree in accordance with the desire expressed by the Federal Treasury Department (Department of Agriculture) if the United States should persist in retaining in the new customs tariff the exorbitant duties to which I have had the honor to call your excellency’s attention in my preceding written and verbal communications.
The same warning has been communicated, with the same amicable intent, by my Government to the representative of the United States at Rome, who has presented a complaint similar to that which, after receiving your excellency’s note of March 15, I transmitted to the royal ministry of foreign affairs.
Accept, etc.,