Mr. White to Mr. Hay.
Berlin, March 27, 1899.
Sir:
* * * * * * *
Reduced to a few words it appears that Germany’s grievances against the United States arise practically from the prevailing difference of interpretation of the meaning of the most-favored-nation clause in the treaty with Prussia of 1828. Count Posadowsky referred to [Page 300] this treaty and the commercial treaties with the Hanse Towns of about the same date (mentioning casually that almost all German exportations to America went by way of these “Towns”) as being recognized by Germany as fully in force. He said that practically the question was this: Either Germany should enjoy all the commercial benefits accorded by the United States to any third country, whether under reciprocity treaties or not, and unrestricted most-favored-nation treatment should prevail, or it must be considered that restricted (“beschrankte”) most-favored-nation treatment should prevail, and that Germany had made a mistake in according to us without concession the benefits of the seven Caprivian treaties of commerce, which were based upon reciprocal concessions. He considered that the most-favored-nation clause had been violated by us when we first put a differential duty upon sugar exported from bounty-paying countries, that it had been further violated when this duty was made compensatory, and still further when we declined to accord to Germany gratuitously the benefits of the recent commercial convention with France, which we have accorded to Switzerland. The value of this last to us he estimated as only about $200,000, while it touched Germany in a particularly sensitive place, as she felt that her “right” had not been recognized.
Count Posadowsky was much interested in learning that American products imported into Cuba and Porto Rico and Cuban and Porto Rican products imported into the United States were treated in the same way as imports from any other country, and agreed with Mr. Porter in the hope that better times in America would increase the importation of German products. The practical question, however, he said, was whether Germany should continue in her understanding of the meaning of most-favored-nation treatment, or should adopt that of the United States and decline for the future to accord us the advantages of the Caprivian commercial treaties.
* * * * * * *
I am, etc.,