DUTIES TO THE STATE DEPARTMENT—AND OTHERS.
The consular service may be likened to a great reporting system. The consuls are reporters, their offices are news agencies, their field the world, their managing and publishing office the State Department, their organ the Consular Reports, their readers—just a few persons, here and there, whose numbers, by the way, are increasing. In addition to the correspondence which must be carried on in connection with the duties mentioned, the consul may have occasional correspondence on public business with “the Secretary of the Treasury, the Comptroller, the Auditor for the State and other Departments, the Register of the Treasury, collectors of customs as to invoices and prices current, the diplomatic representative of the United States in the country where he resides, other consular officers, and with naval or military officers in the service of the United States who may be employed in the neighborhood, and to whom it may be necessary to communicate immediately any event of public interest, and with no other person”.
This, I trust, will serve as a brief conspectus of consular duties, and now we will listen to questions.
After dismissal a group of men including a banker, a merchant, two manufacturers, a grain dealer, some traveling men, etc., made their way to the platform and were introduced to Professor Loyal as some of the business men of the place.
“We suppose, Professor,” said one of them, “that it is rather aside from your purpose to tell us how to reach foreign trade—how to get our goods on the market—and yet it is the very thing we need to know; so if you can give us any further light we shall appreciate it”.
“I am very glad to hear you say so”, said the Professor, “for that is just what the consular service is intended to do, while my purpose is to serve as an introduction committee between you and the service. You will find in the syllabi the name and address of every member of the consular and diplomatic services all over the world, and they, no doubt, will furnish you all the information you need. The Regulations, indeed, have this to say: ‘Inquiries made by citizens of the United States touching business matters, or other matters not of mere curiosity, should be answered as far as they can be consistently with the consul’s other duties. All inquiries of this character should be acknowledged, even when it is impracticable to answer them’”.
“But why not write at once to the State Department”?
“That may be just as well. The supposition is, however, if you know in what country you expect to find your market the consular service there can give you the most help, because the local conditions are known. If you do not know where to find your market, you should at least familiarize yourself with the Consular Reports, the ‘advance sheets’ of which give the latest news from foreign markets. If you are exporters you will have no difficulty in obtaining these through your Congressmen”.
“Don’t you suppose, Professor, that a handbook of directions to shippers could be prepared by the Government—something to show how goods should be manufactured or packed, as well as cost of transportation, customs duties in foreign ports, etc.”?
“Yes, but you would find your handbook growing to enormous size, until finally it would be no less and no other than the Consular Reports. The trouble is, or has been, that people don’t read these enough. Now, let us get an idea of what such a handbook would contain. What do you manufacture”?
“Farming machinery”.
“Well, now let us suppose you have discovered that there is a market for your merchandise in Argentina. Suppose, too, that the horses in that country are of lighter draft than ours: then your machines must be lightened correspondingly, and this involves a good deal of detail. Again, their soil will differ from that for which you are manufacturing, consequently you may have to change the shape of your plows, or the construction of your harrows, or the size of your drills. Again, one must make sure that the natives can handle intricate machinery before sending any twine-binders, steam-engines, etc. Then, too, you must learn the strong and the weak points of the machinery with which you are to compete. So you see, when it is remembered that we have been considering a few contingencies in regard to only one line of industry, and that, too, in only one country, the sum of the contingencies is enormous. When it comes to cottons or woolens the case is much the same; the width, texture, color, pattern, price—everything which makes goods salable in any one country—must be known, and the advertisements put in a way that appeals to native sentiment and taste. In the Consular Reports you will get the information you need, and you will find it hard to be put in a handbook”.
“Well, as a matter of fact, I haven’t seen much of the Consular Reports”, said one.
“Nor I, either”, said several others, as they turned to go.
LECTURE
IV
DIPLOMATIC SERVICE.
In 1815 the Congress of Vienna adopted seven rules for the regulation of diplomatic intercourse. The United States was not represented at this historic congress—wasn’t important enough and perhaps wasn’t interested enough; but it has chosen to conform to the rules, nevertheless. The fact that we had nothing to do with the promulgation of these rules and that we are the only power that has since grown into a commanding position, gives us a diplomatic advantage, an independence agreeable to our national ideals and geographical situation. The first of these rules reads as follows:
“Article 1. Diplomatic agents are divided into three classes: That of Ambassadors, legates or nuncios; that of envoys, ministers or other persons accredited to sovereigns; that of chargés d’affaires accredited to ministers for foreign affairs”.
Three years after the Congress of Vienna the Congress of Aix la Chapelle adds an eighth article, which reads as follows:
“Article VIII.—It is agreed that ministers resident accredited to them” (to sovereigns, presumably) “shall form, with respect to their precedence, an intermediate class between ministers of the second class and chargés d’affaires”.
Consequently the classification of our diplomatic officers is as follows:
1. Ambassadors. We do not send or receive legates or nuncios, as there are representatives of the Pope, and to do so would be contrary to our national policy respecting church and state.
2. Envoys, ministers or other persons accredited to sovereigns. This class includes that official with the ridiculously lengthy title of envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary—usually called minister “for short”.
3. Ministers resident, who are usually also consuls general. There are but four of these in our service, and as there is little justification for this grade it will probably some day be abolished.
4. Chargés d’affaires (pronounced shar-zha-daffair), who are not accredited to sovereigns, but to the minister for foreign affairs.
It should be borne in mind that this classification has nothing whatever to do with the transaction of business. All diplomats have essentially the same duties to perform. It is merely a matter of precedence, which was considered much more important at the time of the Vienna congress than it is now. Indeed, there are good reasons for thinking that we have outgrown these distinctions and should straightway abandon them. This much, at least, is apparent to all—that the chief diplomatic officer at every legation ought to be an ambassador, thus making no invidious distinctions between countries.
As it is at present we send ambassadors to the most important countries, envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary to those that are next important to us, and so on. Thus there are five ambassadors; one each at London, Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg and Mexico respectively, thirty envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary, four ministers resident, and one who is classed as a chargé d’affaires.
There are secretaries of legation at twenty-three different capitals, who in the absence of their chief may become chargés d’affaires exercising all the functions of a diplomatic officer. At fourteen different capitals there are military or naval attachés, sometimes both, and an interpreter at six of them.
Legation, or embassy, formerly meant the particular business, the errand, so to speak, upon which the ambassador was sent.
These terms are now used more often to designate the officers themselves who are sent on an embassy, and finally by the extension of the term they also mean the official residence of those officers.
American legations as a rule have fewer members than those of other great nations and are much less expensive. The American diplomatic service costs only one fourth as much as the British. Whether or not the result is desirable upon the whole you may judge for yourselves; for while it must be said that we have as a rule been very well served diplomatically, yet on the other hand one direct result of our economy is that only men of wealth can afford to be ambassadors. The cost of living, and especially of entertaining, is so high and the salary is so inadequate that no man in ordinary circumstances can occupy a high diplomatic position where the social requirements are burdensome.
In several cases the parsimony of the Government has been quite contrary to its own best interests. In Central and South America, for instance, where we ought, by all means, to be well represented, the same officer is frequently accredited to two, or even three different countries. Now, no country likes to have a representative of an inferior grade accredited to it, certainly not when a mere change of title would mend the matter, but when it comes to being bunched together with another country or two by a powerful and wealthy neighbor it is almost insulting, and the countries in question show a justifiable resentment. In such countries we will find European nations well represented, and yet we wonder at our own loss of prestige.