Part 4

“The second point to be mentioned is the effect of this parsimony—miscalled economy—upon the higher positions. For instance, suppose a man is appointed to a place, the duties of which involve some diplomatic responsibility. Such a man must live on a scale becoming his position, or bring himself and his country into contempt. As a matter of fact it has frequently happened that a thrifty consul, profiting by the example in frugality set by his government, has tried to save money by living in rented rooms above his business office, only to find when the inspector came around that he had to move out and live in a more sumptuous fashion. Aside from the question of sentiment, democratic or undemocratic, the government is best served by a consul who, other things being the same, enters a great deal into society and is not too careful to live within his income. It gives him an influence, a prestige among his surroundings which inures to the financial advantage of his country. Uncle Sam pays less for his consular service than does any other power of equal wealth, but those who know best the service and its possibilities have always claimed that it is poor economy.”

Q. “Will you please distinguish again between Consular Clerks and Clerks at Consulate”?

A. “Certainly; Consular Clerks are not stationed at consulates at all. They are specialists who work upon some task assigned by the State Department. Such a one may specialize upon a certain line of textile fabrics in all its degrees of quality and the methods employed in its manufacture. Another may become an expert authority on chemicals or iron and steel products, etc. Clerks at Consulate are, as you may suppose, those engaged in ordinary clerical duties at the consulates.”

Q. “Do you think that the present movement in favor of consular reform has any partisan purpose”?

A. “Not at all. The last two administrations, i. e., Cleveland’s and McKinley’s, have done more for this cause, perhaps, than all the others put together. Moreover, the time just now is ripe for this reform and Congressmen should be more than ever awake to the necessity of it, irrespective of party”.

Q. “How about that school for consuls and diplomats, Professor? It seems to me that however desirable it may be, it is hardly feasible for partisan reasons.”

A. “That, of course, is the stock objection to such a proposition. Yet I fail to see why such a school might not be put into the hands of a non-partisan board—say the second and third Assistant Secretaries of State, who do not change with the administration as a rule. And we might add to these the Civil Service Commissioners, or any other competent men, provided they are not to be meddled with on the score of partisanship. Partisanship does not enter into the management of West Point or Annapolis to any noticeable extent, nor does it prevent our numerous State universities from being as well managed as other institutions of learning.”

Q. “But why not leave all this to the institutions already established?”

A. “Well, perhaps as good a reason as any is that none of them are in Washington. The government has here its great scientific museum, the Smithsonian Institute; also its historical museum, various experiment stations, and above all, perhaps, its Congressional Library and collections of State papers and archives. Besides, diplomacy should be learned from diplomats in active service—men acquainted with their occupation both past and present, European and American. Such a school need not be continuous, perhaps, or conducted as many months of the year as other schools, its chief purpose being to satisfy the exigencies of the Government, rather than to furnish a liberal education”.

Q. “I suppose, Professor, that our Government has treaties with most other countries covering the principal points of commercial importance”?

A. “Yes, in the main, though there are some surprising exceptions. For instance, ‘the-most-favored-nation’ clause is not in the treaties with either Great Britain or Sweden and Norway. With many of our neighboring states we have no extradition treaties whatever. A glance at the synopsis[5] given will show that our treaties are fullest with the following named countries: Austria, Belgium, Colombia, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Roumania, San Salvador and Servia. Evidently the treaties with some of the other countries need overhauling.”

Footnote 5:

See Appendix.

LECTURE III

THE CONSULAR SERVICE—DUTIES.

Consular duties, like household duties, are very numerous; and about as multiform as they are numerous. The mere mention of them, aside from any description or dwelling upon particulars, would leave little time for anything else to be said in the same lecture. We shall content ourselves, therefore, with a cursory view, a glance over the whole field of those duties, without stopping to distinguish between those of a consul and those of a consul general, or of a seaport and of an inland town.

The following classification will be found to be helpful and very nearly comprehensive:

(1) Duties commercial. (2) Duties in connection with customs regulations. (3) Duties to merchant vessels. (4) Duties in case of wrecks. (5) Duties to officers, naval, diplomatic and departmental. (6) Duties to seamen. (7) Duties in regard to immigration and quarantine. (8) Duties to citizens other than seamen. (9) Duties judicial—in non-Christian countries. (10) Duties to the State Department.

There are a few others, such as duties in regard to extradition, the purchase and transference of foreign built vessels, etc., etc., which we shall term miscellaneous.

DUTIES COMMERCIAL.

The most important of these—the one indeed which is now, as it always has been, of central importance in the consular service, is the one first mentioned—commercial duties. Owing to its importance I will quote in full from the Consular Regulations, pages 248-51, the list of subjects upon which the consul is expected to report to the State Department:

“1. Conditions of foreign commerce and internal trade, manufacturers, mechanical industries, agriculture, etc., especially—

“(a) Statistics of exports and imports, of shipping and of revenue and expenditure of the country; amount of public debts, national and local; rates of taxation, character of taxable basis, how taxation is levied and collected, amount of taxation per capita, etc.; value, actual value in exchange, and also as measured by the dollar of the United States; changes in purchasing power of the currency; banking—new systems, especially of savings banks and of banks as associations for lending money to agriculturists, mechanics, and factory operatives; public loans and the matters of finance affecting the industry or commerce of the country; commercial credits—rates and periods usually granted to foreign purchasers, and those expected from foreign shippers; trade usages and peculiarities; special demands of consumers as to demand and quality of goods or supplies already in use or capable of being introduced among them, with suggestions as to the best and most economical style of packing to conform to local requirements of sale and transportation.

“(b) Improvement of old and development of new industries, including inventions or discoveries, and the result obtained from the practical application of them.

“(c) Introduction of inventions made in the United States or imitations of them; application of business or mechanical methods employed in the United States.

“(d) Importation and use of food supplies, raw materials and manufactures from the United States, or the possibility of introducing them, and local or race requirements to make them acceptable to foreign consumers.

“2. Facilities for direct and indirect communication with the United States—establishment of new ocean or international railroad lines or agencies; development of internal transportation lines—railroads, highways and steamboat or other carriage on rivers and canals, or betterment of them; opening up of new trade routes or abandonment of old ones; changes in transportation rates, both freight and passenger, which are of general interest to commerce; bounties or subsidies to railroads and shipping.

“3. Development or decline of commercial and manufacturing centers; causes of drift of agricultural population to towns and cities; diversion of trade from one local market or district to another; projects for great manufacturing or other industrial enterprises for harbor or river improvement, for better methods of lighting, street paving, water supply, sewerage and disposal of sewage, economy of municipal taxation and expenditure; hygienic and quarantine measures; police systems, urban and rural.

“4. Changes in economic condition of producing communities, urban and rural; fluctuations in rates of wages, cost of living, prices of products, raw and manufactured, especially for food supplies, wearing apparel, agricultural and domestic implements, machinery, etc.; scarcity or glut of articles of consumption of all kinds, particularly those produced in the United States; changes in hours of labor or other conditions affecting workingmen, trades’ unions; strikes and lockouts; systems of co-operation and profit sharing; government measures (national, municipal or local) or private (organized) projects for insurance or care of infirm or superannuated laborers, for improved sanitation of factories and dwellings, for regulating the labor of women and children, and for combating usury in the lending of money; technical and commercial education; museums, exhibitions, merchants’ unions and similar organizations for promoting trade, and the functions assumed by the state in connection therewith.

“5. All changes in tariff legislation, including new rates of export, import, or transit duties, special care being taken to state whether they discriminate in favor of or against the United States as compared with other countries. When a wholly new tariff law is enacted it should be given in full with an explanatory statement of increase or decrease in duties as compared with the tariff previously existing. Prompt notice of contemplated tariff legislation should be sent to the Department. By tariff legislation are meant not only measures affecting export and import duties, but also those relating to customs administration, transit duties, octroi or municipal taxes upon supplies entering cities and towns, taxes imposed upon the import or export of articles from one political district of a country (such as a state, province, canton, arrondissement, etc.) to another, tonnage, taxes and port dues, or other taxes upon shipping, etc.

“6. Legislation or proposed legislation of interest to farmers, merchants, mechanics, inventors, etc., such as changes in patent, trade mark, and copyright laws; laws to prevent adulteration of food, or to prohibit importation or sale of adulterated or impure food; laws prohibitory of importation of diseased animals, impure seeds, etc.; measures discriminating for or against any particular class of products or against imports from any country; bounties granted to special lines of manufacture or agricultural production; changes in legislation concerning agricultural, commercial or industrial concessions, such as government land grants, railroad bonuses, special privileges, and exemptions for colonists; encouragements to or restrictions of immigration; rights of citizenship; taxation or exemption of manufacturing plants, machinery and implements; licenses to trade; taxation of commercial travelers; legislation as to bankruptcy and collection of debts, etc. Also decisions of courts or of government officers on important commercial questions; government regulations relating to law changes; changes in commercial procedure.

“7. Undertakings and enterprises of moment—the construction of public works, the opening of mines, the granting of concessions for working minerals or forests, or for other similar purposes”.

This is an admirable list for any one to study if he would learn what are the signs of a nation’s material prosperity. It deserves further comment because of its importance to the consular service, but we must pass on.

DUTIES IN CONNECTION WITH THE CUSTOMS REGULATIONS.

A large share of the routine of every consulate is concerned with the customs regulations, certifying to invoices, guarding against fraud, keeping account of all transactions and reporting the same to the State Department. If you are engaged in importing “fancy Scotch cheviots” (your imported Scotch goods are made in America, however), the goods must be described in full in a consular invoice. This invoice must be signed by yourself or agent and accompanied by an “official shipper’s certificate”, which amounts to saying that the invoice is “all right”, and this again must be signed by the shipper and certified by the consul. Thus the consular service facilitates the work of the customs officials by having imported goods invoiced before arrival at the “port of entry”.

DUTIES TO MERCHANT VESSELS.

An American merchant vessel sailing from an American to a foreign port is required under penalty to deposit its register and also its sea letter with the American consul immediately upon reaching its destination. “It is usual also to deposit its crew list and shipping articles”. These documents are known as the “ship’s papers”, and are kept by the consul until the ship has received “clearance”.

The consul is required to give the masters of vessels all information in his possession concerning coast surveys, pilot and hydrographic charts, etc., such as are published by the Navy Department, and to furnish to the State Department any information that may be of service to navigation.

DUTIES IN CASE OF WRECKS.

No consular officer is permitted to take any action in case of a wreck, if the “owner, master or consignee thereof is present and capable of taking possession of the same”. If no such person is present, the consul is required, so far as the laws of the land permit, to take all necessary action for the preservation of vessel and cargo, and keep inventories of the same, together with the expense involved. The consul must make a full report of such wrecks to the State Department, whether they occur within his jurisdiction or are brought in.

In case Americans are shipwrecked the consuls are required to “render such assistance as may be in their power”, but they are not authorized to incur any expense with the expectation that it will be met by the State Department.

Whenever foreigners render aid to shipwrecked Americans, the Consul is required to forward to the State Department an account of the facts, giving the name of the master of the foreign vessel and those of the crew who especially distinguished themselves for heroism or humanity. These details should be quite exact, as they are to be laid before the President, who is authorized by Congress to make suitable acknowledgment. In some cases the consul may reward a rescuing crew out of funds at his disposal.

DUTIES TO OFFICERS—NAVAL AND DIPLOMATIC.

Duties to naval officers were mentioned in connection with “rank” in the preceding lecture. Officers of the Navy are under a reciprocal duty to consuls, however, which should be mentioned. On this point I quote the exact words of the Regulations.

“The Navy is an independent branch of the service, not subject to the orders of the Department of State, and its officers have fixed duties prescribed for them; consuls will, therefore, be careful to ask for the presence of a naval force at their posts only when public exigencies absolutely require it, and will then give the officers in command the full reasons for the request and leave with them the responsibility of action. If the request is addressed to the Department of State, the reasons should likewise be fully stated for its information.”

The diplomatic service has general supervision over the consular service in any one country. When there is a consul general, this supervision is exercised through him, and the consuls will not correspond officially with the diplomatic officers—except in reply to inquiries. Where there is no consul general the consuls will correspond directly with the diplomatic officials and “endeavor in all cases to comply with their requests and wishes”. Leaves of absence and recommendations for appointment of subordinate officers are usually sent through the diplomatic officers.

Sometimes in the absence of a diplomatic officer a consul general or consul may discharge the duties of a diplomatic officer. Sometimes the two offices are united in the one representative.

“Consular officers will confer freely with the Treasury revenue agents who may be appointed to visit and examine the consulates. They will remember, however, that these agents have no authority to instruct them as to their official acts”.

DUTIES OR RELATIONS TO SEAMEN.

To no other class of citizens, save in uncivilized countries, does the consul stand in such immediate relationship as to seamen. This would seem to be because as a class, since their occupation takes them to all parts of the world and away from the protection of their own country, and, moreover, because they are laborers and not men of means, they are more at the mercy of circumstances as well as of unscrupulous masters in foreign lands. On the other hand, justice to the masters also requires national authority to enforce contracts and assist in securing harmony often-times on shipboard. Fully 57 pages of the Regulations are taken up with this subject under the following heads:

1. Shipment of seamen. 2. Discharge of seamen. 3. Wages and effects of seamen. 4. Relief of seamen. 5. Transportation of seamen. 6. Desertion of seamen. 7. Disputes between masters, officers and crews.

A master of an American merchant vessel who engages any seamen in a foreign port must do so under penalty in the presence of the American consul and only with his sanction. The engagement must be signed in duplicate by both master and men in the presence of the consul, who must see to it that the seamen understand clearly the terms of the contract. Seamen may be engaged for a definite time, for a round trip, for a single voyage or “by the lay”, and the terms of the agreement are called the “shipping articles”. In case of desertion or casualty the master may engage a number of seamen equal to the number lost and report to the first consul he sees. In case a vessel is purchased abroad and the seamen “have not character of American seamen” (subsequently defined), they do not come within the jurisdiction of the consul.

An American seaman is (1) an American citizen or (2) a foreigner shipped in an American vessel in an American port or (3) a foreign seaman shipped in an American vessel in either an American or a foreign port, who has declared his intention in a competent court to become a citizen of the United States and has served three years thereafter on American merchant vessels. For purposes of protection the filing of the declaration is sufficient.

A consular officer may discharge a seaman upon his own or his master’s application, provided the terms of the agreement have been fulfilled. He is also to give a certificate to that effect to the seaman. Other cases where American seamen are discharged abroad are for sickness, misconduct, on the sale of American vessel, on account of ill treatment, when vessel is wrecked or condemned as unseaworthy, etc. The general policy of the government is to “discountenance the discharge of seamen in a foreign port”, and any master who knowingly abandons a seaman abroad is subject to fine and imprisonment. “Cases have occurred in which the consular officers have, with the subsequent approval of the Department of State, removed masters of vessels and appointed others in their places to complete the voyage”, but this was only when the “gross incompetency” of the masters endangered the lives of passengers and crew.

A consul in discharging a seaman, must see to it that his wages are paid, otherwise “he shall be held accountable to the United States for the full amount thereof”.

It is the duty of the consul to provide for destitute seamen, to secure their transportation to the United States at government expense, subject always to certain conditions, and to take charge of their effects upon their death at sea or in port.

The consular officers must help to reclaim deserters and call in the assistance of the local authorities for this purpose if necessary, which they are authorized to do by treaty with several countries and by comity or usage with others.

One of the many interesting points in international law is that of “mixed jurisdiction”, as it is called, or jurisdiction within a harbor. A dispute on shipboard on the high seas is clearly within the jurisdiction of the country under whose flag the vessel is sailing, but when the vessel comes into the harbor of another country it is just as clear that the jurisdiction of that country is superior. As a matter of practice, however, it has long been found best to allow all such controversies occurring on shipboard within a harbor to be tried by the law and authorities to which the vessel is subject, provided, of course, that “it does not involve the peace or dignity of the country, or the tranquility of the port” where it occurs. In all such cases the consul, as the representative of his government, acts as an officer of justice. Where he is authorized by treaty to call for local aid he is cautioned not to do so if it can be avoided. If such aid is refused, he should lay claim to his treaty rights and then report at once to the diplomatic officers in the country and to the State Department.

This hurried review of the consul’s relations to seamen leaves a great deal unsaid, but the main points, at least, have been touched upon. Let us now turn to

IMMIGRATION.

The old idea that this land is an asylum for all kinds and conditions of men is now happily exploded. The classes of aliens now excluded are as follows:

(a) Chinese laborers. (b) Contract laborers. (c) All idiots and insane persons. (d) Paupers or persons likely to become a public charge. (e) Persons suffering from a loathsome or contagious disease. (f) Felons and all criminals except political offenders; (and these latter are excluded if the penalty is removed upon condition of immigration). (g) Polygamists. (h) Assisted immigrants. (i) Abandoned women.

Every master of a vessel having on board immigrants bound for any port in the United States is obliged upon arrival to submit a manifest to the inspector of immigration. A manifest is a list of the immigrants on board, with a general description of each one, giving name, age, sex, nationality, ability to read and write, calling or occupation, means, destination, etc. This must be subscribed and sworn to by the master in the presence of the consul before the vessel can leave port, and in like manner the surgeon of the vessel must take oath that he has made a personal examination of each one and finds everything satisfactory.

QUARANTINE.