No. 518.
Mr. de
Pestel to Mr. Evarts.
Washington, January 6, 1880.
Mr. Secretary of State: The Netherlands abolished all discriminating duties in their East Indian colonies on the 1st day of January. 1874.
While the United States have now for six years enjoyed the benefits of this liberal measure, they continue to levy a discriminating duty of 10 per cent, on Dutch colonial ‘products imported from ports of the Netherlands.
From this results a state of things which is very unfavorable to trade in the principal articles of export of those colonies in the American market; that is to say, in coffee, tea, and tin.
[Page 818]Coffee is especially affected by the existence of a discriminating duty which renders competition in the United States with the other countries producing this article exceedingly difficult. Coffee is a colonial product which belongs exclusively to the government, and of which it has a monopoly; the coffee is brought for the most part to Holland to be sold in the Amsterdam market, where the large periodical sales of this product take place.
The levying of an exceptional duty upon Java coffee when imported from a port of the Netherlands (this duty constituting under the circumstances a discriminating duty) is, in reality, excluding the commerce of the Netherlands as regards One of its principal articles of export to the American market for the benefit of other countries which produce the same article.
In view of the foregoing, I take the liberty of propounding to your excellency the question whether, in your opinion, it is just, equitable,, and in harmony with the spirit which dictated Article V of the convention of 1852 between the Netherlands and the United States, and with the principles of reciprocity which have usually governed the commercial relations between the two countries, to maintain an exceptional duty of 10 per cent, on the coffee of the Dutch East Indies imported from Holland, now that the Netherlands have abolished all discriminating duties in those colonies.
I submit this question to your excellency’s kind consideration, and if you share the opinion of my government that the reclamation is just, I beg you to call the attention of Congress to the propriety of exempting the Netherlands from the operation of section 2501 of the Revised Statutes of the United States.
I avail myself of this occasion, &c.,