A.—4

88

[Federal Council] to undertake the proposed guarantee on the part of the State. Your Highly-well-born knows the interest the State takes in the prosperity of German enterprise in the South Sea. I can refer in this respect to the memorial in which I laid the treaty of 24th January last year with the Samoa Islands before the Bundesrath and the Eeichstag during the last session. In consequence of a well-known Hamburg firm, for reasons which did not commence in their South Sea business, having got into difficulties which threatened the German South Sea trade with the loss of what forms its centre, the factories and plantations on the Samoa Isfands, and the hope that those interested would succeed with their own moans.in. averting, in the national interest, this lamentable calamity, I believed myself, in the interest of our transatlantic commerce, to be justified in asking His Majesty the Emperor to grant me the permission to propose to the legislative bodies to grant the endangered enterprise the necessary means of existence. I did so all the more readily, as lately recognized financial authorities, after examining the actual circumstances, have declared that if they are supported by the State they would undertake the forming of a company with the primary object of securing the mentioned lands and factories. The statute which has resulted, from the various negotiations, and is here appended, offers to the smallest capitalist the possibility of participation, and, by doing so, expressing the national interest in the result. The conditions regulating the relations between the State and the Company, which have been framed with the assistance of the Imperial Exchequer Office, give a guarantee of not only his but also the interests of the public. Having received the Imperial sanction, I shall introduce a proposal to the Bundesrath which, under the above-mentioned conditions, grants a financial assistance by the State to the (on the basis of the accompanying Statute) about-to-be-formed Company. Von Bismabck. To Highly-well-born the Imperial Under-Secretary of State, W. Sckolz, Berlin.

lll—Trading Companies.

No. 2. The Agent-General to the Premier. (Eecoived Ist May, 1880.) Gebman Parliament rejected Guarantee Bill, Samoan Company. Vogel. London, 30th April.