San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-03-30
A CAUSTIC CRITICISM.
Report Of United States Consul
General DeKay at Berlin
Complains Bitterly of h German
Commercial Methods Unfair
Treatment Accorded For
eign Products.

United States Consul General Charles
DeKay at Berlin, the well-known jour-
nalist, anticipating evidently the
speedy termination of his official duty
at his present post, has addressed to
the state department acoustic criticism
upon German commercial methods,
which the department has made public.
A considerable portion of the report
is devoted to an account of the dissolu-
ton of the produce exchanges of Berlin,
Konigsberg, Posen, Magdeburg and
other towns. His comments upon this
action and the causes that led up to it
and the results that will probably fol-
low, will make interesting reading in
Germany when retransmitted there
by the German ambassador, and Mr..
DeKay, it is believed, will have his grip
sack packed and his resignation in the
hands of the state department before
the report receives official recognition
in Germany. This portion of the re-
port, is, however, too lengthy and too
full of te~chnicalities to be of general in
terest to the United States. He proceeds
as follows:
Gust now the Berlin markets and those
of other large German cities are full of de-
licious apples, cheap, large, firm, fragrant
and fine favored. Because they come from
America certain papers are against them;
the others dare not point out their superior
ity to European fruit. 1t has already been
suggested that they may bring in some
beetle or moth, whose worm might even
tually play havoc with G~erman-born APP
pies, and that suggestion may still be elab-
GRATED to the satisfa ction of the agrarian
paper by some microscopic who is ambr
tious to preferment.
"a paper let the cat out Of the bag re-
Gently regarding the rule that keeps Rus
sian swine out of Germany, when protest
ing violently against a removal of the ban
on the ground that all the eastern prov
inces of the empire would be filed with
Russian beasts.
Much the same ~antecedents have
brought the Hungarian produce exchange
at Buda-Pesth to a very similar pass. The
agrarians of Hungary have made the same
demand, namely, that the various landed
proprietors shall be made directors of the
produce exchange at the appointment of
the minister Of commerce, without cleo
ton on the part of the members OF the eX-
change, whether such appointees are mer-
chants and understand the rales and Gus
toms of the exchange or not.
The sharp proceedings against the ex-
changes of Prussia seem part of a gen.
eral movement here by which all the places
worth having are gradually brought into
the W of the titled and land-owning
classes. Thu in 1S4S merchants were ap
pointed to hold office as Prussian minis
tiers of state. Down to IS62 the minister OF
commerce was a merchant. But since that
date the incumbent had been one of tht
hereditary foes of commerce, and neith-
er by education nor inclination disposed to
humor the mercantile classes.
1.-THE state treasury of Prussia is like
Iy to suffer from the closing of the prod
uce exchanges, since the law for the taxa
ton of business on these exchanges Is SO
worded as apparently to exempt from tax
alton business transacted than
or the open exchange.
But to regard the whole matter from
its widest aspect. Apart from the fact
tina the government has dealt one class OF
Germans a direct blow by placing MEM
bers of another class as watchers and IN
spectors over them, the entire movement
TO superintend exchanges and hedge the
public from the danger of buying doubt
full bonds or getting caught In grain opera
tions seems to suffer from a radical dis
ease. II the government undertakes to
make the public quite safe when dealing on
the exchanges, 1t must also expect that the
public will look to It for compensation If
anything goes wrong, If, let us suppose
stocks and bonds are sold which turn out
afterwards be rotten, or else grain Is
| sold at a price far above the true market
price. Having put its own inspectors In
| command and hedged the business round
with a tangle of rules, stamps. formula
and what not, the public will not see the
need of examining into the goods on Its
own account, but will inevitably hold the
-@NnafhIA fnr anu InGa "