File No. 611.627/358.
The Acting Secretary of State to the German Ambassador.
Washington, February 11, 1911.
Excellency: I have the honor to inform your excellency that the Department is in receipt of information from the International Agricultural Corporation of New York to the effect that the corporation has been advised by a cable that the Imperial German Government has demanded from the management of the potash mine Kaliwerke Sollstedt, owned by the corporation, the payment of excess-production taxes into the Imperial Treasury on all potash shipped under the American contracts since May 28, 1910, payment to be made within 10 days. The amount involved is a very considerable sum, being in excess of $1,100,000, all of which has been paid under protest by the American contractors.
[Page 230]It is likely within your excellency’s knowledge that this mine is wholly owned by American citizens, and that it makes no sales whatever of its products in the markets of Germany but exports its entire production to the United States under contracts now the subject of controversy. Consequently since the question of the imposition of this tax upon the Sollstedt mine is of the very essence of the negotiations now in progress between the United States and Germany, the Government of the United States is strongly of the opinion that, according to customary practice, no collection of excess-production tax from the Sollstedt or other mines on account of shipments under the American contracts should be required pending the present negotiations.
I am therefore constrained to urge your excellency to make this view of the Government of the United States known to the Imperial German Government by cable, and to request its acceptance of it to the end that the demand now made may be withdrawn at least until the present negotiations shall have reached a conclusion.
Accept, etc.,