"Consular clerks are required to pass an examination in handwriting and orthography, arithmetic, and one foreign language (speaking, translating, and copying)." Mr. White through a series of years was our secretary of legation at London, and is thoroughly informed on the subject of consular duties and the acquirements that are essential to an efficient and respectable service. His approval of the plan adopted in this bill for the reformation of our consular system and service is a strong recommendation of its future advantages. In Germany persons are appointed to the office of consular chancellor who have passed their examinations as "referendary," a title which requires graduation at a German university and requires a thorough knowledge of law, political science, statistics, etc. The chancellor of the consulate is promoted gradually until he reaches the rank of consul-general. As a rule the personnel of our consular establishment is not in unfavorable contrast with that of the leading European States as to intelligence and sagacity; but our consuls have not usually the liberal education characteristic of the consular representatives of the great European States, nor are they so well informed as to commerce and its great variety of contributory pursuits, or with the exact business methods employed in conducting the commerce of the leading nations. This seems to be our point of most serious deficiency. It is proper, and may be necessary, that the laws should designate the places at which consulates are established, but discretion should be given to the President to send consuls to other places, at least temporarily, to meet the demads of trade and intercourse that may arise in new and unexpected quarters. Especially is this necessary in cases where other countries are engaged in war, and a sudden emergency calls for the protection of our citizens in places which are not designated by law as the location of consular establishments. But the laws should not designate the individual who is to be the consul at any particular locality. That matter should be left to the discretion of the President, so that he can at all times have the right man at the right place, to meet any demand of trade, or to secure the adequate protection of the persons and property of our citizens in any emergency, or for any public reason. The arrangement of the fixed residences of consuls of the several classes is not attempted in this bill. The laws and the practice of the Department of State are, for the present at least, a sufficient guide in that matter. The president should, however, be left free in his authority to send a consul of any class to any consulate when he may consider that the demands of the public service require such transfers. The reasons for such a provision of law are many and cogent, and they are so obvious as not to require any elaboration in this report. They relate as well to the fitness of consular officers for the particular duties of the occasion as to their usefulness because of their experience as to the condition of the people, the trade, and the language of the particular locality where their services are required. The consular establishments thus mobilized would soon show a great growth in useful knowledge of the affairs of various parts of foreign countries, and our trade with many foreign countries would be greatly increased and rendered more secure. The following statements, showing the present condition of our consular service, will show that the change in the organization of the system will add materially to the revenue derived from that source, without a material increase of the expenditures: Expenditures for salaries of consular officers and amount of compensation in fees, where the officer has no salary, for the year 1894. 26 consuls-general (not including those also commissioned ministers res ident) 188 salaried consuls. 11 salaried commercial agents. 13 salaried consular clerks.. 62 feed consuls (personal perquisites in official fees) 33 feed commercial agents (personal perquisites in official fees) $98,000.00 371,500.00 22,000.00 15, 000. 00 36, 152.85 36, 505.53 250,000.00 According to the Annual Report of the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury for the year ended June 30, 1894 The expenses for last year of the consular service were Excess of expenditures over receipts...... $1,055, 417. 43 758, 410. 81 297, 006. 62 This excess of expenses is larger than it has been for ten years. In 1893 it only amounted to $96,042. The difference is not due to an increase of expenditures, but, no doubt, may be found to a great extent in the changes of our tariff laws. This excess, though larger than customary, is, after all, a small sum when considered with reference to the important purposes for which it is disbursed, and, with the payment into the Treasury of the unofficial fees, as proposed under this bill, it is likely to be greatly reduced, if not changed into a balance in favor of the income from that source. The entire excess of expenditures for salaries in the Department of State and in the diplomatic and consular service over the receipts amounts to only $615,909.19, the smallest amount expended by any of the great powers of the world. The expenditures of the foreign service of Great Britain, Russia, Germany, Italy, and Spain exceed this amount by very considerable figures, and the report of the ministry of foreign affairs of France for the year 1893 shows only $240,000 receipts and $3,266,960 expenditures, a sum almost double that expended by the United States, including even the incidental and contingent expenses of the consular and diplomatic service of the latter country. This bill adopts the principle of permanent official tenure, so far as the laws can control that subject, but permanent only as it is of benefit to the service. It leaves the power of removal from office to the discretion of the President. The position of each employee of the service is protected against the uncertain and demoralizing effects of changes for merely political reasons in the administration of the Government as far as Congress can control the subject. But this protection is as necessary in practice for efficient work as it is just in theory, and if the plan is adopted of appointing consuls after they are found to be qualified for the respective classifications of the consular service they will seldom, if ever, be dropped from the service for the purpose of supplying their places with political favorites. The required examination for appointment and promotion creates an impediment in the way of those who may demand office as a reward for political partisanship, without having adequate knowledge of the duties of this peculiar branch of the public service. Each consul must, on frequent occasions, be the judge of his proper line of action without aid or direction from the minister to whom he is required to report or from the Department of State. In such cases it is requisite to the honor and security of the Government that the consul should be well informed as to his duties. The right of the President to select from the whole body of consuls any man for any place he may prefer, and to assign him to such place for duty, and to transfer him at pleasure to another place, is the full equivalent of the power of appointment to a particular office. These functions are to be exercised in foreign countries, for the most part distant from the United States, and disconnect the incumbents from participation in our home politics. In so far as they may be given as rewards for party services, they are a sort of pension system for men who have not been successful in getting offices at home or who have failed of success in the usual channels of business. The consular system should be based upon the plan of personal qualification for its important and peculiar duties, ascertained by the examination and experience of those employed in it, rather than upon the plan of selecting those for this service who have failed in other pursuits or those who desire to go abroad for purposes of travel, recreation, or amusement. This is the only branch of the public service that has been used, to any great extent, for the gratification of the incumbents, without regard to their capacity to render efficient service to the country, and it is time that our policy in respect of these offices was changed. Taken in the aggregate, there is no class of representatives of our Government who can so seriously affect our commerce with other countries, in their actual and direct conduct and dealings, as our consuls and commercial agents. We should encourage our best classes of people to qualify themselves for this important service by giving them just compensation for their work and by securing them in these offices during good behavior. They have much to do with the dignity of our Government, its credit in foreign lands, the honor of its flag, and the safety of its citizens. Since Mr. Morgan made the report just given a portion of the consular service has been classified in accordance with an Executive order, which is as follows: EXECUTIVE ORDER. It being of great importance that the consuls and commercial agents of the United States shall possess the proper qualifications for their respective positions, to be ascertained either through a satisfactory record of previous actual service under the Department of State or through an appropriate examination: It is hereby ordered that any vacancy in a consulate or commercial agency now or hereafter existing, the salary of which is not more than $2,500 nor less than $1,000, or the compensation of which, if derived from official fees, exclusive of notarial and other unofficial receipts, does not exceed $2,500 nor fall below $1,000, shall be filled (a) by a transfer or promotion from some other position under the Department of State of a character tending to qualify the incumbent for the position to be filled; or (b) by appointment of a person not under the Department of State but having previously served thereunder to its satisfaction in a capacity tending to qualify him for the position to be filled; or (c) by the appointment of a person who, having furnished the customary evidence of character, responsibility, and capacity, and being thereupon selected by the President for examination, is found upon such examination to be qualified for the position. For the purposes of this order notarial and unofficial fees shall not be regarded, but the compensation of a consulate or commercial agency shall be ascertained, if the office is salaried, by reference to the last preceding appropriation act, and if the office is not salaried, by reference to the returns of official fees for the last preceding fiscal year. The examination hereinbefore provided for shall be by a board of three persons designated by the Secretary of State, who shall also prescribe the subjects to which such examinations shall relate and the general mode of conducting the same by the board. A vacancy in a consulate will be filled at discretion only when a suitable appointment can not be made in any of the modes indicated in the second paragraph of this order. GROVER CLEVELAND. EXECUTIVE MANSION, September 20, 1895. It will be seen that this provides only partially for the consular service and does not diminish the need of the comprehensive reorganization proposed by the accompanying bill; in fact the scheme proposed in the bill is an extension of that established by the Executive order, and gives not only complete reorganization but the authority of law to the classification, which now rests merely on a departmental order. [See pp. 13, 143, 187, 321, and pp. 72, 119, 199, 276, Vol. VI.] FIFTY-FOURTH CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION. December 21, 1896. [Senate Report No. 1160.] Mr. Cameron, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, submitted the following report: Congress, at its last session, after long and patient consideration, adopted with practical unanimity the view expressed by your committee that the time had come for resuming intervention with Spain for the recognition of the independence of Cuba. Spain having declined to listen to any representation founded on an understanding between herself and the insurgents, and Congress having pledged itself to friendly intervention, the only question that remains to be decided is the nature of the next step to be taken, with proper regard to the customs and usages of nations. Before deciding this question, your committee has preferred to examine with some care all the instances which have occurred during this century of insurgent peoples claiming independence by right of revolt. The inquiry has necessarily led somewhat far, especially because the right of revolt or insurrection, if insurrection can be properly called a right, seems, in every instance except one, to have carried with it a corresponding intervention. For convenience, we have regarded both insurrection and intervention as recognized rights, and have attempted to ascertain the limits within which these rights have been exercised and their force admitted by the general consent of nations. The long duration of the French revolutionary wars, which disturbed the entire world for five and twenty years, and left it in a state of great confusion, fixed the beginning of our modern international systems at the year 1815, in the treaties of Vienna, of Paris, and of the Holy Alliance. The settlement of local disturbances, under the influence of the powers parties to these treaties, proceeded without serious disagreement until 1821, when the Grecks rose in insurrection against the Sultan. The modern precedents of European insurrection and intervention, where independence was the issue involved, began with Greece. 1. GREECE, 1821-1827. The revolution broke out in Greece at the end of March, 1821. Within a month the rebels got possession of all the open country and all the towns, except so far as they were held by Turkish garrisons. The Sultan immediately called all Mussulmans to arms; the Greek Patriarch was hanged at the door of his own church at Constantinople; several hundred merchants were massacred; several hundred Christian churches were destroyed, and the Russian ambassador was insulted. Russia was then the head of the "Holy Alliance," the union of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, which had crushed Napoleon and guaranteed the peace of Europe. The Greek revolution was the work of liberal forces which had produced the disturbances of 1789, and which the Holy Alliance existed chiefly to combat. No government in Europe sympathized with the Greek rebels. Austria was entirely hostile. England and Prussia followed the same impulse. France feared interven tion on account of her royalist dynasty. Even Russia, the only power which must profit by weakening Turkey, was interested in revolutionizing the principalities, but not in revolutionizing Greece. This universal fear of innovation caused no small part of the interest suddenly developed in the practice of international law and its limitations for the advantage of legitimate Governments. The neutrality acts of the United States and of England took shape in 1818 and 1819. The great powers of Europe held congress after congress for the international settlement of political and even social difficulties; at Aix in 1818; at Carlsbad in 1819; at Vienna in 1820; at Troppau, OctoberDecember, 1820; at Laibach from January to May, 1821; and subsequently at Vienna and Verona in the last six months of 1822. At Troppau, in November, 1820, the three powers of Russia, Austria, and Prussia united in signing a protocol expressly intended to assert the right of intervention in all cases where a European power "should suffer, in its internal régime, an alteration brought about by revolt, and the results of which are menacing for other States." The language of this protocol had much to do with the subsequent course of events. Faithful to the principles they have proclaimed and the respect due to the authority of every legitimate Government, as well as to every act which emanates from its free will, the Allied Powers will engage to refuse their recognition to changes consummated by illegal methods. When States where such changes shall have been effectuated shall cause other countries to fear, by their proximity, an imminent danger, and when the Allied Powers can exercise in regard to them an efficacious and beneficent action, they will employ, in order to restore them to the bosom of the Alliance, at first friendly processes; in the second place, a coercive force, if the exercise of that force becomes indispensable. England and France did not join in this declaration, or in the intervention in Naples which was its immediate object; but the Alliance acted systematically on the principle thus laid down, which was in the full energy of its operation, when, four months afterwards, the Greeks broke into revolt. For these reasons the Greek insurrection assumed great importance in the eyes of all the civilized world and in the history of international relations. Other revolts were directed merely against a local authority, and aimed to subvert a dynasty or an oppressive rule. The Greeks fought for independence, and since the Declaration of Independence by the United States in 1776, no new nationality, based on successful insurrection, had been recognized by Europe. Russia almost instantly began by calling the attention of the allies to her claim that the whole Greek race, whether in Greece proper, or in the islands, or in the principalities, were of right under Russian protection. This declaration was made June 22, 1821, within three months of the outbreak of the revolution, and two years before the Monroe doctrine took shape. It was coldly received by all the powers except Prussia, while the Turkish Government rejected with indignation a simultaneous warning from Russia in the form of an ultimatum, dated June 28, that the further coexistence of Turkey with other European States would |