The Secretary of State to Steinhardt and Kelly
Gentlemen: The receipt is acknowledged of your telegram of December 2, 1915, relative to shipments of apples and other fruit to the Netherlands.
In reply you are informed that the Department understands that you will not experience difficulty in making shipments of fruit to [Page 198] the Netherlands, provided the fruit is consigned to the Netherlands Oversea Trust.
The Department gave careful consideration to the question of the importation of fruit into Holland sometime ago. It was then learned that under a special agreement between the Governments of Great Britain and Holland, involving reciprocal concessions, the British Government had agreed to allow, under special conditions and within specified limits, the free importation of certain goods into Holland. Amongst these were specified classes of fruits, the produce of Mediterranean countries, except Turkey, carried in ships of a particular Dutch line which sail once a month, such fruits being allowed to pass not consigned to the Netherlands Oversea Trust. More recently this concession has been extended to consignments from Spain. Consignments from Portugal have been included from the outset.
It is not thought that these circumstances warrant renewed representations on the part of the United States, as this Government does not find it practicable to offer the concessions which Holland has made.
I am [etc.]