File No. 611.627/380.
The German Ambassador to the Secretary of State.
Washington, March 29, 1911.
Mr. Secretary of State: In reply to your excellency’s courteous notes of the 9th and 17th instant, I have the honor respectfully to say that the Imperial Government, without departing from the position taken in the memorandum of January last, concurs in your excellency’s suggestion that a settlement of the potash question be reached privately. The Imperial Government recommends that the conference of the parties in interest be held at Brussels, as being a neutral capital, and will use its influence with the German interests in favor of an agreement, if the United States Government will for its part declare that it has brought the American buyers and the Schmidtmann company around to a conciliatory attitude in the same sense.
As for the collection of the excess-production tax, it is, as I have already had the honor to inform your excellency, a question for the several States, which, under their existing laws, may not waive the giving of security. The collection was nevertheless temporarily suspended, but can not be much longer deferred on account of the impending expiration of the term of limitation. Furthermore, the suspension of the collection has already been attacked as unlawful in the Reichstag, and it is to be apprehended that the Reichstag that is to convene again on May 2 will order the immediate collection of the taxes.
Accept, etc.,