The Acting Secretary of State to the Italian Chargé .
Washington , November 5, 1906.
Sir: Your note of the 2d instant, requesting a reply to your embassy’s communication of the 13th of September last has just been received and I have the pleasure to inform you that a reply to the note of the 13th of September was at the moment under course of preparation and is now transmitted.
In your note of September 13th you state that “henceforth with the shipment of preserved American pork there shall be required the certificate of the federal inspector attesting the microscopic inspection as provided by the regulations governing the matter in this country, which is made in favor of other foreign countries in like cases.” You ask that the necessary steps be taken on the part of the federal authorities to have this measure complied with.
With regard to the underscored part of the quotation it would seem that there may be some slight misunderstanding on the part of your Government which I shall endeavor to clear by the following explanation.
The Department of Agriculture has discontinued microscopic inspection of pork for all countries, and no longer issues the so-called “purple certificate” attesting the fact of such microscopic inspection. These certificates were issued under the act of Congress of March 3, 1891, and the Department of Agriculture is not prepared, under existing regulations, to resume their issuance.
The Department of Agriculture is, however, prepared to issue upon request of the exporters uniform certificates—so-called “white certificates”—contemplated by the new inspection law of 1906. The present form of the white certificate attests that the products “have been inspected and marked in conformity with the requirements of the act of Congress approved June 30, 1906, that the animals from which said products came were free from disease, and that the meat and meat-food products thereof are sound, healthful, and wholesome, [Page 960] and were prepared and handled according to the sanitary regulations of the department.”
The existing unsettled conditions regarding the Italian requirements for inspection of pork seriously threaten the large meat contracts for the present season and imperil future trade. Our new inspection law of 1906 is extremely rigid, perhaps the most so of any in the world, and it is earnestly hoped that the Italian Government will, in the light of the foregoing explanations, admit American pork products accompanied by the white certificates above described. To insist upon additional inspection would constitute a burdensome, and, it is believed, unnecessary restriction on export trade, and an expense which might not be justified by trade conditions.
Be pleased to accept, etc.
Acting Secretary.