File No. 300.115/5871

The Ambassador in Germany (Gerard) to the Secretary of State

[Telegram]

3075. My 3070, November 1.1 Received to-day following reply from the Foreign Office regarding exportation beet seed:

The Imperial Foreign Office has the honor to state the following in reply to the note verbale of the American Embassy, of October 7, 1915:

This year’s crop of sugar-beet seeds in Germany has been poor; heed therefore must be paid that the stocks remain in the country. Exceptions can, on principle, only be granted in cases in which equivalents are offered on the part of the foreign countries by the importation into Germany of articles of such nature as to maintain the German economic balance arising from loss by exportation of the sugar-beet seeds.

Solely with the object of extending particular courtesy to the United States of America, the Imperial Government would be willing, without the furnishing of an equivalent, to allow the exportation of 15,000 hundredweight sugar-beet seeds on the condition that the Government of the United States not only guarantees, as offered, that the goods, on arriving in the United States of America, will remain in the country, but that it also guarantees that the goods, while en route, will not be seized by the enemies of the Empire. The Imperial Government furthermore would have to reserve to itself the right of distributing delivery of the 15,000 hundredweight among several seed growers, in order thereby to create a balance of interest. Consequently the Imperial Government would have to be enabled to assume that it is agreed on the part of America that the granting of further quantities of beet seeds can only enter into question against the furnishing of equivalents.

An answer to the foregoing is respectfully solicited.

Berlin , November 2, 1915.

Gerard
  1. Not printed.