File No. 611.627/394.
The German Ambassador to the Secretary of State.
Washington, April 8, 1911.
My Dear Mr. Secretary: With reference to your courteous note of April 3 and our last conversation about the impending conference between the parties interested in the potash controversy, I beg to [Page 237] say that according to a telegram I just received the Imperial Government can not see its way to agree to this conference being held at New York. The German interested parties insisted that it should take place at Hamburg, they also having last year attended a conference at New York which did not lead to any result. The Imperial Government, however, hoping thus to meet the wishes of the United States Government, proposed to hold the conference at Brussels, and induced the German interested parties to accept this proposal. The above-mentioned telegram does not refer to the date of the impending conference. I therefore presume that the conference can take place as soon as we have reached an agreement about the place where it is to be held.
Believe me, etc.,