Absence.—Consuls are forbidden to be absent from their posts longer than forty-eight hours without reporting to the Department about it. No one is permitted to be absent more than ten days at any one time without permission from the President. Special permission must be obtained in order to return to the United States, and the statutes do not provide for a continuance of salary for an absence of longer than sixty days.
This is about all that need be said about the consuls themselves. What remains to be considered will come up in connection with the duties of the consular office. We will wait a few moments for questions.
Q. “Professor, aren’t there other needed reforms in the consular service besides those you have mentioned”?
A. “Certainly, but I preferred to dwell only upon the most difficult and at the same time the most vital of them all; namely, the choice and preparation of the men. I think it might be well to emphasize just a point or two more in this connection. The first is that the consular service ought not to be filled with foreigners. The Consular Register of July, 1899, shows that out of 706 subordinate positions, including commercial agencies, 412 are filled by men born in the country where they are stationed. In fact, out of a total of 1,020 men in the consular service only 547 are of American birth or parentage. The reason for this is that so many of the positions don’t pay enough to induce Americans to undertake them. Four or five hundred dollars a year may mean something to a man who is on the spot, small as the sum is, but it shuts Americans out of a large majority of the subordinate positions.
“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”?