Mr. Hay to Mr. White.
Washington, April 7, 1899.
Sir: Your dispatch No. 800, dated March 24, 1899, informs the Department of your conversation with Minister von Bülow in respect to our construction of the most-favored-nation clauses of our treaty with Switzerland.
Under the discovery of the actual understanding of the parties to that treaty at the time of its ratification, the attention of this Government was for the first time in the half century of the treaty’s existence directed to its variance from our well-understood national policy; and the Swiss Government was advised that if not modified by a new agreement in harmony with that policy, we should feel obliged to terminate the treaty.
The conventional notification to arrest the operation of this treaty has been given to Switzerland since the date of my No. 778, to which [Page 301] your present dispatch is a reply. You may incidentally mention the fact of this denunciation to Baron von Bülow.
I am, etc.,