Mr. White to Mr. Hay.
Berlin, March 24, 1899.
Sir: During my interview with Minister von Bülow, referred to in my dispatch next preceding, having ended the discussion of the Samoan matter, I gave him, as instructed by you, the main points in your No. 778 of February 28, 1899, first expressing to him the pleasure with which the Department had received advices of the friendly tone of his recent speeches in Parliament.
I brought up first the concession, by the United States to Switzerland under our treaty of 1850, of the benefits accorded to France by the reciprocal convention of May, 1898, and I compared the most-favored-nation clauses in our treaties with Switzerland and Prussia, showing him the radical differences between their stipulations and reading to him portions of your note No. 201 of November 21, 1898, to the Swiss envoy in Washington in confirmation of these statements, and as proof that the concession was made only when it had become evident that the treaty with Switzerland, and the understanding of it as recorded on both sides, plainly demanded such concession.
I also promised to send him an aide memoire on the subject.
He gave close attention to the matter, and then spoke of the desirability of sundry small commercial concessions from the United States to Germany which, though amounting in the aggregate to but a moderate sum, would, he thought, have a most excellent effect both on the Imperial Parliament and on American opinion in general.
I asked him to send me a memorandum regarding these concessions, which he promised to do, and when it shall have arrived I will communicate it to the Department.
I am, etc.,