hat their consumption is
deleterious to the public health. This is all the more irritating in
view of the fact that no European state is as jealous of the excellence
and wholesomeness of its exported food supplies as the United States,
nor so easily able, on account of inherent soundness, to guarantee those
qualities.

Nor are these difficulties confined to our food products designed for
exportation. Our great insurance companies, for example, having built
up a vast business abroad and invested a large share of their gains in
foreign countries in compliance with the local laws and regulations then
existing, now find themselves within a narrowing circle of onerous and
unforeseen conditions, and are confronted by the necessity of retirement
from a field thus made unprofitable, if, indeed, they are not summarily
expelled, as some of them have lately been from Prussia.

It is not to be forgotten that international trade can not be one-sided.
Its currents are alternating, and its movements should be honestly
reciprocal. Without this it almost necessarily degenerates into a device
to gain advantage or a contrivance to secure benefits with only the
semblance of a return. In our dealings with other nations we ought
to be open-handed and scrupulously fair. This should be our policy
as a producing nation, and it plainly becomes us as a people who love
generosity and the moral aspects of national good faith and reciprocal
forbearance.

These considerations should not, however, constrain us to submit to
unfair discrimination nor to silently acquiesce in vexatious hindrances
to the enjoyment of our share of the legitimate advantages of proper
trade relations. If an examination of the situation suggests such
measures on our part as would involve restrictions similar to those from
which we suffer, the way to such a course is easy. It should, however,
by no means be lightly entered upon, since the necessity for the
inauguration of such a policy would be regretted by the best sentiment
of our people and because it naturally and logically might lead to
consequences of the gravest character.

I take pleasure in calling to your attention the encomiums bestowed on
those vessels of our new Navy which took part in the notable ceremony of
the opening of the Kiel Canal. It was fitting that this extraordinary
achievement of the newer German nationality should be celebrated in the
presence of America's exposition of the latest developments of