The Acting Secretary of State to Minister Leishman.
Washington, January 31, 1906.
Sir: The department is in receipt of a dispatcha dated the 28th ultimo from Consul-General Bergholz, of Beirut, Syria, inclosing copy of his dispatch No. 37, of the same date, addressed to your legation, forwarding a complaint from the firm of Messrs. Mourgue d’ Algue and Dadre, extensive importers of American petroleum at Beirut, in relation to new regulations approved by an imperial irade, increasing the tax on the storage of petroleum in the municipal warehouses from 3 piasters ($0,132) a case per annum—2 piasters ($0,088) being refunded on each case shipped into the interior—to 1½ piasters ($0,066) per case for the first month and 1 piaster ($0,044 for each additional month.
The complainants, in their letter of December 21, 1905, to Mr. Bergholz, copy of which is in the files of your legation, claim that the new system of a monthly rate will be especially injurious to the trade in American oil “by the necessity which will be laid on the said trade to import petroleum in small quantities while the importation of American petroleum can only be made in large cargoes for reasons of economy and freighting.” They also complain of the lack [Page 1401] of precision in the fifth article regulating exemption from tax of petroleum oils declared for transit.
Referring to the statement of the complainants that the new rate represents a more than fourfold increase, it is assumed that the former rate of 3 piasters a case per annum was payable at that rate for fractional periods of a year according to the time of storage. This being the case, it becomes of interest to learn the average length of time American oil remains in storage at Beirut; for if this be only two or three months the grievance is affected proportionately. It is also important to know whether the prevailing method of importing and handling the competing oil of Russian origin will give that product a commercial advantage in the markets of Syria under the new regulations, whereby the same would involve a virtual discrimination against the American product.
In case you have not already done so, you are instructed to clear up these and any other doubtful points by correspondence with Consul-General Bergholz, and then, in case the results of your investigation tend to corroborate the claim of the complainants that the new regulations will affect injuriously American trade in petroleum, to represent to the Turkish Government the injustice of such restrictions upon any important branch of our export trade, urging especially that the provisions of the fifth article be made more precise.
I am, etc.,
- Not printed.↩