TARIFF RESTRICTIONS.

FORTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION.

March 19, 1884.

Mr. Miller of California, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, submitted the following report:

The Committee on Foreign Relations, to which was referred the resolution of the Senate of January 22, 1884, the first clause of which is as follows

Resolved, That the Committee on Foreign Relations be instructed to inquire into and report to the Senate such legislation as shall protect our interests against those governments which have prohibited or restrained the importation of meats from the United States

has considered the foregoing, and begs leave to report herewith a bill which, in the opinion of the committee, contains the legislation necessary for the protection of the interests of the people of the United States in the matter embraced in that part of the resolution above quoted.

The facts and data upon which the committee has based its conclusions, as expressed in this bill, are for the greater part included in the three documents appended hereto and made a part of this report, viz: First. House Executive Document No. 70, Forty-eighth Congress, first session, being a communication from the Secretary of State relative to the restrictions upon the importation of American hog products into Germany and France.

Second. House Executive Document No. 106, Forty-eighth Congress, first session, being the report of the commission appointed by the President "to examine into the swine industry of the United States and into the allegations as to the healthfulness of the pork products.

Third. Report of the Chief of the Bureau of Statistics to the Treasury Department of February 12, 1884, "on the production of swine in the United States, and the interdiction of American hog products from France and Germany," etc.

Appended hereto is also a copy of a dispatch1 from the American minister at Paris to the honorable Secretary of State, dated February 8, 1884, transmitting a copy of the answers made by the French Academy of Medicine to the questions propounded by the French minister of commerce on the subject of the importation of foreign meats, which show that the academy voted, with but one dissentient voice, that "the importation of foreign salt pork may be fearlessly authorized by the French Government, as it is clearly proved that no danger to public health has been caused by such importation."

The investigation which the committee has been able to make of this subject results in establishing to the satisfaction of the committee, among others, two important propositions or matters of fact.

First. That trichina do exist to a limited extent in swine throughout all swine-producing countries, and in the United States as well as others, but to a less degree than in Germany or France. The evidence shows that about 2 per cent of American pork is infected by trichinæ. Second. That the curing process of pork by salt destroys trichinæ to such a degree that pork thoroughly salted and permitted to remain

1 See p. 861.

long enough to become saturated with the salt, although infested with trichinæ, is innoxious.

Without entering upon an argument in respect to the propriety or inexpediency of a policy of retaliation as to those governments which have discriminated or may hereafter discriminate without just reason against any class of American productions, the committee propose to briefly state the propositions of the bill.

First. It is proposed to institute at the principal ports of the United States a system of inspection of salted pork intended for exportation, and exported within sixty days next after the date upon which the same may have been salted and packed, so that the fact of the innoxious and wholesome character of the article shall be established by the best, highest, and most reliable proof.

Second. The President is to be authorized at his discretion to exclude from the United States, by proclamation, any product of any foreign state which, by unjust discrimination, prohibits the importation into such foreign state of any product of the United States.

Third. The importation into the United States of any adulterated or unwholesome food, or vinous, spirituous, or malt liquors, adulterated or mixed with any poisonous or noxious chemical, drug, or other ingredient injurious to health, is by the bill prohibited under proper penalties.

Fourth. The President is to be authorized, by proclamation, at his discretion, to suspend the importation of articles so adulterated from any country for such period of time as may be deemed sufficient to prevent the practice of such adulteration of articles intended for importation into the United States.

These are the measures which the committee deem necessary and adequate as a remedy for the evils comprehended in that part of the resolution which has been considered.

It is the intention of the committee to consider the second branch of the resolution and make report as early as practicable.

[Forty-eighth Congress, first session, House Ex. Doc. No. 70.]

IMPORTATION OF AMERICAN HOG PRODUCTS INTO GERMANY AND FRANCE.

[Message from the President of the United States, transmitting a communication from the Secretary of State relative to the restrictions upon the importation of American hog products into Germany and France.]

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

I transmit herewith, in response to the resolutions of the House of Representatives, the following report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying papers, relative to the restrictions upon the importation of American hog products into Germany and France.

EXECUTIVE MANSION,

CHESTER A. ARTHUR.

January 31, 1884.

To the PRESIDENT:

There have been referred to the undersigned, for appropriate action thereon, the two following resolutions of the House of Representatives:

"Resolved, That the President be, and he is hereby, requested to furnish for the information of this House, if not incompatible with the public service, all communications, documents, and papers in his possession relating to the exclusion of and restrictions upon the importation of American hog products into Germany and France.

"Whereas Germany and certain other foreign governments have interdicted the importation of the swine products of this country for the pretended reason that said products are not proper and wholesome for food; and

"Whereas an invitation on the part of this Government to said foreign governments to send agents here to test said products has been declined, thus indicating that the pretended reasons given for such interdiction are not real reasons; and "Whereas it is the duty of this Government to act promptly and with energy to resent the injustice done by said charges and to protect these great products from said imputation: Therefore,

Resolved. That the President of the United States is hereby requested to transmit to this House, if, in his opinion, it be not incompatible with the public interests, copies of any and all correspondence had by the State Department with all foreign governments on this subject, together with any and all information that he may have bearing upon this question."

Regarding these two resolutions, jointly, as embodying the wish of the popular branch of Congress to be possessed of whatever may throw light upon the measures adopted by foreign governments to the detriment of an important branch of the export trade of the United States, and also of all that may tend toward a just and effective remedy for such detrimental measures, the undersigned has endeavored to cover the whole ground embraced by both resolutions, by collecting and submitting to the President, herewith, copies of all pertinent matter found of record in the Department of State, to the end that it, or so much of it as the President may deein proper, may be communicated to the House of Representatives in response to its requests; and in so doing the undersigned avails of the occasion to submit to the President, as briefly as possible, such considerations drawn from a general review of the action of this Government hitherto in the premises as seem to him appropriate to the understanding of the general subject in its international bearings.

The action of the leading governments of Europe took shape between 1879 and 1881, and was practically simultaneous in several countries.

On the ground of the alleged frequent discovery of trichinæ in hog's meat coming from Cincinnati into Italy, the sanitary department of that Government issued an order on the 20th of February, 1879, prohibiting all pork imports of whatever character from the United States-a prohibition which was soon afterward. May 6, 1879, made general against all foreign pork. About September, 1879, the Hungarian council general of public health caused a like prohibition in Hungary. Dr. Ludwig von Grosse, at the International Medical Congress of Amsterdam, in September, 1879, announced that the prevalence of trichinæ in pork products from America had led to consultation between the Austrian and Ĥungarian Governments, with a view to making the prohibition adopted in Hungary universal throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which, however, was not accomplished until more than a year afterward. By an imperial decree of June 25, 1880, Germany prohibited the importation of chopped pork and sausages (but not of hams or bacon) from America. The French Government, as the result of the alleged discovery of trichinæ in some salt pork from America, issued a decree on the 18th of February, 1881, upon the advice of the consultative committee of public health, forbidding the importation of salt pork coming from the United States. This action on the part of France was followed by several other States of Europe, and Turkey and Greece excluded the pork products of the United States, professedly in pursuance of the French example. The consideration of the same measure in Austria-Hungary, pending since 1879, was closed by the promulgation, March 10, 1881, of a decree prohibiting the importation of swine meat, lard, and sausages of every kind from the United States.

Efforts were made, for professed sanitary reasons, to effect like prohibitory enactments in Belgium and Switzerland during the same time, but those Governments, holding rightly that no danger from trichinæ attended the consumption of properly cooked hog products, abstained from the interdiction sought.

Meanwhile in England popular excitement arose in the early part of 1880, caused by the publication of reports by several British consular officers in the United States alleging the prevalence of hog cholera in the West to an unusual and alarming degree, and imports of live swine and swine products to the British Islands were checked for a time, but no prohibitory legislation ensued.

Apparently confined at first to scientific and hygienic considerations, the movement soon took, in the great European countries, an interested commercial aspect. The Governments of France, Germany, and Austria seem to have become subjected to pressure from adverse quarters. On the one hand, there became manifest a general tendency among men of science and practical economists to condemn the prohibition as unwise and needless. On the other, the local hog raisers and packers raised objection to the admission of a foreign product which, from its

nature and manner of packing, they alleged could not be subjected, before entering into public consumption, to the same methods of investigation which legislation had prescribed for native swine products. Thus the question debated in the press and legislatures of France and Germany looked to determining whether the importation of pork products from the United States was or was not, in fact, a source of danger to the public health.

It now seemed no less the duty of the Government of the United States to investigate the question. A great industry, giving a prosperous export trade, had been declared pernicious to health and its products debarred from use abroad. The same considerations of public health which operated to bring about total prohibition abroad made it necessary that the alleged perniciousness should be no less searchingly investigated at home.

As a preliminary step the Department of State, in March, 1881, prosecuted an examination of the various phases of the pork industry in the Western States, from the raising of the hogs until their varied products are ready for marketable shipment. This investigation, made by Mr. Michael Scanlan, Chief of the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of State, covered all the possible causes which might operate to render the product dangerous to health. It embraced the diseases of swine, hog cholera receiving especial attention. The alleged prevalence of trichinæ among the swine of this country was rigidly inquired into. The results of that investigation appeared to the Department of State conclusive as to the healthfulness of a staple product consumed without evil consequences by millions of our own citizens. Not only were the asserted ravages of hog-cholera disproved, but it was shown that unusual precautions had been universally taken to insure that none but the health est animals should be slaughtered for packing. It was shown, moreover, that the existence of trichinæ in the hog, although detected by proper tests in sundry cases, was not as widespread as among the swine of other countries; and that a much greater immunity from trichinosis existed throughout the great pork-consuming communities of the West than in the rural districts of central Europe, where none but native pork products entered into consumption.

The facts thus elicited warranted and constrained the Department of State to represent to the foreign governments that the prejudicial judgment against the swine export of this country was ex parte and unfounded. How diligently the agents of this Department abroad have endeavored to overcome this adverse prejudgment is shown in the correspondence communicated herewith. The result has hitherto not been of such a character as this Government felt it had good right to expect.

In France the discussion has passed through several phases. The French Government showed an earnest desire to meet the problem in a just sense. Ministers, legislators, and the most eminent men of science there united in declaring their conviction that the use of American pork, in any of its exported forms, whether as fresh meat or prepared for keeping, was absolutely innocuous to hea th. Not a single case of trichinosis traceable to American pork had been observed in France for many years. It was demonstrated that cooking destroyed the communicable forms of the parasite in the rare cases where it was detected. Science asserted that even the low temperature of 158 F. sufficed to kill the trichinæ. But the difficulty seems to have lain in applying to imported pork the same examination which sanitary regulations provided for the native product. Various schemes of microscopic inspection on entry were devised, for the most part admittedly partial and fallacious, and all, according to the best judgment of this Government, needless and serving only to impede a traffic which had been shown to be harmless. At length, in November last, the Government repealed the prohibition. The immediate consequence was the renewed agitation of the question in the French Chambers and a very decisive vote against the removal of the prohibition. The Government of the Republic has therefore, with evident reluctance, been compelled to rescind its recent action, and after a sufficient interval to admit of shipments which had been made on the faith of the revocation of November, the interdiction is restored from the 20th instant. The correspondence herewith submitted will enable Congress to judge impartially the course of the matter in France.

In Austria-Hungary and Italy the prohibition has been maintained. With Germany the representations of this Government took a different and to some extent an unusual direction. When, in February last, notwithstanding the proofs adduced to show that the restriction of pork imports into the Empire was not warranted by any state of facts known to prevail in the United States, but was rather at variance with the ascertained facts here, it was announced that the Imperial Government was about to submit to the Reichstag measures of total exclusion. Reasoning that the emergency justified any and every mode of appeal to the sense

of justice and equity of the German Government against a measure believed to be no less injurious to the interests of the German people than to our export trade, the President directed that the Imperial Government should be informed of his intention to appoint an impartial and competent commission to investigate the asserted danger of American pork products to health, with a view to ascertaining and promulgating the exact facts in relation thereto, and that it should be invited to send one or more experts hither to make such investigation, either separately or jointly with a United States commission. The invitation was declined, the reason briefly being that in a matter concerning domestic sanitary legislation the German Government could not enter into any arrangement which might imply an obligation on its part to accept and be bound by a state of facts existing outside of its jurisdiction.

The President has since appointed the commission then contemplated. It is composed of a representative of the New York Chamber of Commerce, Prof. Charles F. Chandler; a representative of the Chicago Board of Trade, Mr. E. W. Blatchford; two members nominated by the Commissioner of Agriculture, Mr. F. D. Curtis, of Charleston, N. Y., and Prof. D. E. Salmon, the whole under the chairmanship of the Commissioner of Agriculture. In point of scientific competence and elevated impartiality the formation of the commission peculiarly fits it for the execution of its responsible task. To it should belong in great measure the shaping of the policy of this Government toward the pork question in its domestic or foreign aspects.

In view, therefore, of the prominent part which the results reached by the pork commission must necessarily play in the further treatment of the question by the Executive or by Congress, the undersigned feels it incumbent upon him to advise that the President recommend Congress to abstain from any immediate legislative action until the report of the commission, soon to be presented, shall be before it. In advance of such report, and, indeed, without any knowledge of its probable import or intimation of the suggestions it may offer, the undersigned deems it his duty to lay before the President certain considerations prompted by the language of the resolutions to which he now responds.

The preamble to the second resolution above quoted indicates that Congress may feel impelled to take measures to resent the injustice which may be shown to have been done by the groundless charge that the swine products of this country are not proper and wholesome for food.

The President will see by the instructions of the undersigned to Mr. Sargent, of February 16, 1883, that there has been and is no disposition on the part of the Executive Departments of this Government to prevent or to remonstrate against or in any way to interfere with the right of the German Empire to exclude food the use of which would be deleterious to the people. The question to be carefully, frankly, and honestly met is whether the prepared meat products exported from this country are injurious to public health. We believe they are not, and have so represented it. On the contrary, all the facts which laborious and searching investigations have hitherto laid before us constrain the belief that such products are promotive of the public health in those countries into which they are imported. Diligent inquiry has been made, as the correspondence shows, to trace out the cause of the sickness imputed to the use of imported meats, and such investigations show, we think, that it is in no case attributable to the pork exported from this country.

Should it appear that the meat products of this country are, as we believe them to be, not deleterious, but promotive of health, it is believed that those friendly nations which have put forth decrees inhibiting the importation of our meats would annul those decrees. The undersigned is aware that doubtless in those countries there are producers of meats who would be glad of the continuance of such inhibition, because they would profit by avoiding the competition which our exports create, but he has no belief that they can or would have any controlling influence on the Governments of those countries. If, however, in the face of clear proof, elicited both at home and abroad, that our meat products are free from disease or communicable germs of disease-proof which might be established to demonstration by actual inspection, as well as supported by a knowledge of the precautions which surround the raising and packing industries here-any nations with which we are on terms of intimacy and amity should, by legislation, discriminate against the trade of this country rather than protect the health of their people, it would then be the province of the Executive to call the attention of such nations to the provisions of treaties, with the confident expectation that those treaties would be respected.

The President, in his message. recommended that in certain cases, such as when a foreign nation, by onerous storage charges, exorbitant penalties, differential duties in favor of a competing flag, or by the misuse of some other incident of