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bonds in circulation. This representative exercises all the rights and actions of the bondholders (Art. 34); he occupies a high financial and social position, justified, moreover, by his personality.17 The Bulgarian Government pays the sum of seventy-five thousand francs for his salary and that of his employés and assistants. He must take care to insure the quarters set aside for his habitation and work (Art. 35). Although private establishments name the delegate, and although he represents private individuals, yet because the great majority of the bonds are held by Frenchmen, he maintains semi-official relations with the French legation. It is through the medium of the French ministerresident that the appointment of this delegate is signified to the Bulgarian Government. For this reason, the delegate, though he is not the financial agent of a foreign government, is nevertheless to some extent a certain international personality which makes of him a little more than the agent of private institutions. He exercises, moreover, certain powers which have really to do with public order, and his effect upon the Bulgarian Government is evident. It is he who has supervision over the manufacture and sale of the bandrols. Assisted by a government commissioner, who is the intermediary between him and the Bulgarian authorities, with which he often deals directly, he orders the manufacture of the bandrols in France, locks them in a secure place to which there are two keys, one of which he himself keeps and the other he turns over to the governmental delegate. He hands out these bandrols only for cash; one hundred thousand francs at a time at least, seven hundred thousand francs per month at least. If the purchase of bandrols does not equal the semestrial amount of the annuities, then the Bulgarian Government must make up the balance with cash, and the delegate forwards the amounts received regularly to the Bank of Paris and of The Netherlands. A special report regarding the revenue of the taxes on the Mourourié, subsidiary guarantee of the loan, must be communicated to him. Such is the field of his material activity. But these are not the only obligations of the Bulgarian Government.

In order to avoid fluctuation of the exchange, so that the bondholders may not sustain losses on remittances made to Paris through 17 This delegate is our very distinguished compatriot, M. Bousquet, honorary State-Councillor, to whose publications we have often had occasion to refer.

the medium of the delegate, the Bulgarian State, during the period of the loan, is forbidden to modify any of the laws that regulate the fiduciary circulation of the Bulgarian National Bank, and forbidden to mint silver coin except upon agreement to this effect with the delegate. It also agrees not to issue any new fiduciary notes without his authorization (Art. 25). Likewise, it agrees, in order not to affect the guarantee of its creditors, not to change either the basis or the mode of collection of the loans hypothecated. Lastly, it pledges itself (Art. 34), but for a period of two years only, to float no other loan, nor to guarantee any loan (for instance, of its public institutions) without the authorization that means really without the participation of the united banks. Surrendering the right to modify the taxation laws, the fiduciary circulation, to borrow money, and all this power in the hands of a semi-official personage, does not that mean a real diminution of the government's financial independence? There is an exception, in case there should be war; but in ordinary times, the fact is significant.18

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There is little probability that Bulgaria will soon be able to free herself from this control. The loan contracts do indeed stipulate that she may anticipate reimbursements; but this hope seems chimerical, for she was really not thinking of refunding the millions of this debt, if it is not through conversion, that is to say, through a new loan whose conditions could scarcely be less onerous. The loan of 1902, interest and amortization, was to run until 1953; that of 1904 admits of amortization in fifty years, that of 1907 in sixty years, which means that economic servitude which weighs on Bulgaria very likely will continue for another half century.

At the present time the unredeemed part of the floating debt (fifty million francs in the least), expenses necessitated by military measures taken in the course of the recent crisis, contracts made by the Govern

18 A new loan, at 5 per cent., was guaranteed in 1904, as the last mentioned, by the excess of the bandrol and Mourourié taxes, and in addition by the stamp duty, which, in its turn, has been legislatively and economically immobilized. Lastly, still another loan, 41⁄2 per cent., in gold, 1907, touches in part the revenue of the Mourourié tax. The privilege of the united banks regarding the floating of new loans was, in virtue of this new contract, to run until April, 1909. The Bulgarian Government has but just liberated itself from that shackle.

ment relating to public works, and, in particular, the railways, have made necessary a new loan of one hundred million francs, which was placed in Austria and in Switzerland, for the reason that negotiations for it failed in Paris, owing to the repugnance felt by the Bulgarian Government to offer new securities.

GEORGES SCELLE.

THE HISTORY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE

IX

DUTIES OF THE DEPARTMENT

IV

We considered in a former number of the JOURNAL1 the chief publications of the Department. The President's annual message to Congress usually contains a statement of our relations with foreign Powers, and this serves as the annual report of the Secretary of State. A regular annual report to the President or Congress is required from the heads of other departments but not from him. When Richard Olney was Secretary, however, he made a report dated December, 1896, entitled "Report of the Secretary of State" for that year. It was intended to be the first annual report, but the example was not followed.

The management of foreign affairs being the most important of the regular duties of the Department, the supervision of the diplomatic and consular service are its chief duties. The general rules which govern the foreign service are found in the works on international law and particularly in the American digests; but two special publications have been issued by the Department of State for the guidance of its agents abroad the Diplomatic Instructions and the Consular Regulations. The Diplomatic Instructions were formerly only a printed circular. When John Quincy Adams was Secretary of State in 1820 he conceived the idea of having two sets of instructions for diplomatic officers-general instructions applicable to all, and personal instructions applicable to a particular mission or officer.2 The general instructions were to include: "their correspondence with each other; their deportment to the sovereign to whom they are accredited, and to the Diplomatic corps of the same Court; their relations with the Consuls of the United States in the

1 October, 1911.

2 Diary, V, 143.

same countries; their duties with regard to granting passports; to insist upon the alternative in signing treaties, and to decline accepting the presents usually given by Kings on the conclusion of treaties and to departing ministers." He thought that even more comprehensive standing instructions would be useful.3

Additions to the regulations were made from time to time, until, under the supervision of William Woodville Rockhill, Assistant Secretary, they were paragraphed as in the case of the Consular Regulations and issued as a separate volume in 1897.

The Consular Regulations is a far more bulky book and its tendency is to increase in size. There are more than 1,200 people in the American Consular Service, and the rules for their conduct are embodied in some 3,000 paragraphed regulations. The first issue of the book was in 1855 when William L. Marcy was Secretary of State, and followed the Act of March 1, 1855, remodelling the Consular Service, this book being entitled "General Instructions to the Consuls and Commercial Agents of the United States, Prepared under the Direction of the Department of State." The Act of August 18, 1856, provided for a second edition, which appeared in 1857, entitled "Regulations Prescribed by the President for Consular Officers of the United States." The next issue was in 1870, Hamilton Fish being Secretary of State; another was in 1874; another in 1881; another in 1888; the last in 1896.

These regulations are issued by the President in accordance with law and have the force of law. They are prepared chiefly in the Consular Bureau, but many hands enter into their composition. When a new edition is to be issued they are sent to the White House for the President's approval, which is commonly given pro forma; but when the copy for the edition of 1888 was sent to President Cleveland for his signature he kept it beyond the time occupied by the routine usual in such cases. According to the report circulated, he read the regulations through before he approved them and declared he had found them interesting.

The Department has no higher function than that of making treatiesthose agreements with foreign Powers which regulate our international relations and are, under the Constitution, "the supreme law of the

3 Diary, V, 166, 167.

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