British Consulate

“ The British and French Consulate-Generals at Canton are situated on a large artificial island, known as Sha-mien. Here, too, the European business men live in the most comfortable Europe-like houses, surrounded with gardens and lawn-tennis courts. Here is the cricket-ground and the club. Being in the Far East, the latter is, of course, equipped with one of the most gigantic bar-rooms ever seen. The British Consul-General had ordered chairs for us in which to be carried through the city, as it would be derogatory to the dignity of a European to be seen walking on foot in a Chinese town. ”

“ The British Consulate means that world of ours which seems far away, and is missed occasionally in spite of the novelty of Tarsus life and the cordiality of the missionaries. At the Dougty-Wylies, I am able to dress in the evening, and Herbert always looks best to me in his dinner-coat. We are unconventional until we get back into convention: then we wonder how and why we ever broke loose. ”

“ At Jiddah, Hodeidah, and on the island of Kamaran there are British consulates or vice-con232sulates; and there are reports of a consulate at Sana. At Makalla there is a British agent. Muscat, Bagdad, Busrah, Bushire and Mohammerah all have consulates, with different degrees of authority and position, all exercising power of some sort in Arabia. Bahrein, Lingah, Sharka, Bunder Abbas, and other points in the Gulf have British agents. At Jiddah, Hodeidah and Aden there are several consulates beside the English. ”

“ I had just rounded off my last sentence when he pointed to a house, half- native, half-European, in front of which was a staff bearing the British flag. With the generosity which marks the Englishman away from home I felt in my pockets and found a sixpence. I handed it to my companion; and with a "Talofa" the only Tongan I knew—I passed into the garden of the consulate. The consul himself came to the door when I knocked on the lintel. ”

“ Henry, appointed Consul at Amoy, 63 Gro, Mr. W. L., 408 Gros, Baion, French Envoy to China, 73 Grove, Mr. F., 673 Groves, Mr. G. R., 522 Guedes, Mr. A. P de M.. 807 Gulowsen, Mr. O. K. R., 768 Guy, Mr. James, 198, 219 Hachloff, Mr. W. W., 719 Hale, Mr. B. A., 345, 351 Hall & Holtz, 646, 651 Hall, Mr. E., 781 Halse, Mr. S. J., 622 Hamburg-Amerika Linie, 202, 466 Hankow, 692 ; brick and tile works, 710, 714 ; British Consulate at, 698 ; Bund in winter, 694; business men, 710 ”

“ It is possible that the out-of-date view that diplomatic and consular officers are purely political agents may be excessively retained in some instances, and that the assistance rendered by Her Majesty's Consuls to British trade might advantageously receive more encouragement and departmental recognition. ”

“ Nothing is so easy as to obtain a letter to a consul: friends and relations in England,—men who have travelled, and once dined with him,—consuls in other ports,—an ambassador will seldom refuse an application for a letter to the British consul at this, or that port; for he is considered a sort of public property, bound, almost by the duties of his office, to pay attention to strangers; and if a traveller carry a letter to a consul, and is not offered the hospitalities of his house, he is immediately set down as a very penurious representative of the British government. ”

“ If the British Diplomatic Service is unique in its special line because it is homogeneous, the men being all of the same type as their confrères in the Home Office or War Office at home, the same cannot be said for the Consular Service, which, especially in remote parts of Europe, is of but small or no benefit to Britain, while it has been of immense advantage to her rivals in trade. In cases where there is a genuine Briton at the head of affairs, he naturally takes a British view of all disputes that come along and form his daily work. ”

“ The new consul at Pretoria also reported that everything was as satisfactory as could be expected under the circumstances of war, and his official intercourse with the Transvaal Government afterwards fully justified this assertion. The republics displayed a proper attitude toward the consulate not only as representing American interests, but as representing Great Britain during the course of hostilities. Every facility was afforded the American consul for performing his duties. ”

“ The British consular system was made a service, its members being fairly remunerated and induced to make their occupation the profession of their lives; consequently the Government has at all times competent and reliable servants. ”

“ I said, as we entered the midnight train for Leghorn. "But my own theory is that they were searching for some paper or other that you possess."
"What can my papers concern them?" exclaimed the jovial, round-faced Consul, a man whose courtesy is known to every skipper trading up and down the Mediterranean, and who is perhaps one of the most cultured and popular men in the British Consular Service. "I don't keep bank notes in that safe, you know. We fellows in the Service don't roll in gold as our public at home appears to think." ”

“ Sir George Pragnell, speaking only a few days before his lamentably sudden and untimely end, at the great meeting called by the Lord Mayor of London at the Guildhall on January 31st, 1916, a meeting of the representatives of Trade and Commerce from all parts of the British Empire, said:
"Our business men maintained that our Consular Service should consist of the best educated and the most practical business men we could turn out. ”

“ At all capitals the interests of citizens of the United States are protected by the representatives of Great Britain when our own ministers are absent, and vice versa, and the records of our legations and consulates are always intrusted to the British diplomatic and consular officials, and theirs to ours, whenever necessary. ”

“ If any one grudges us our pittance, and will inquire in Africa, Brazil, Damascus, or Trieste, they will find that at no time, of those or any other months, has a single detail of Consular work been omitted, or neglected, or performed by incompetent or ordinary subordinates, whilst every penny of public money was nervously accounted for. They will learn that we have ever given double of what we have received; that every one of our four Consulates has been a credit to the Government; that the English of our district have always been proud of their Consul and Consulate ”

“ I would surely obtain a British passport if I were again travelling in regions where passports are needed in order to get along easily and without detentions.
Americans when abroad on the Continent very frequently call upon their consul, and would return to the hotel, telling us of the delightful hour spent in genial talk with their consul, and the information obtained from him, and letters of admission to galleries, museums, etc. Consistently I cannot pass myself off as a Yankee and go with them, but determine to visit the British consul, who ought perforce to be my own ”

“ The present magnificently organized consular system of Germany is, then, one of the most remarkable outcomes of the establishment of the united empire. It was initiated by an act of the parliament of the North German Confederation (Nov. 8, 1867) , subsequently incorporated in the statutes of the Empire, which laid down the principle that the German consulates were to be under the immediate jurisdiction of the president of the Confederation (later the emperor) . The functions, duties and privileges of French and German consuls do not differ materially from those of British consuls ”

“ When we had looked over the little local French paper and found what new nations had declared war against Germany overnight, we strolled down to read the bulletins on the Consulate windows, which generally told us what steamer lines had been discontinued, and how we couldn't get money on our checks and letters of credit. Inside, an active commerce was in progress. No passport had been issued from that Consulate for years. Nobody in Europe needed one. You could pass about as freely from Switzerland to France or Germany as you could from Delaware to New Jersey. ”

“ Maynard preferred taking out the passport from the French consular agency. This, on account of less trouble and greater despatch, the British Foreign Office, in true red tape style, requiring the applicant to be known! Several days are often consumed before John Bull, going abroad, can coax his minister to grant him the scrap of paper necessary to his protection! ”

“ Members of the same family may have their names inserted in the same passport, but persons travelling in company should provide themselves with separate passports. Couriers and male servants should each have a passport.
A traveller intending to visit any other territory should have the passports visé (backed) by the Ambassador or Consul of each country traversed.
Consuls residing at the outports also give passports, so likewise do British Consuls resident at foreign seaports.
The British Ambassador's residence, in Paris, is No 39, rue du faubourg saint Honoré. ”

“ The documents are presented at the Passport Office of a neutral country and the necessary passport obtained. The next step is to get it visé’d by the British Consul, who is not as often English as he should be. When he is of English nationality he is frequently too old to be alert and on the lookout for spies. Once the passport is visé’d the travelling spy of German or Austrian birth or interests arrives at Folkestone, Tilbury, Southampton, or some other port where there is no lack of strict scrutiny. ”

“ Since the Consul went away on leave things seem to have been humming—two stabbing affrays, eight drunken seamen locked up, a mutiny on a tramp steamer, and now a yacht being cast away—a fairly decent list! And yet some stay-at-home people complain that British consuls are only paid to be ornamental! They should spend a week here, at Leghorn, and they'd soon alter their opinion. ”

“ WHITE, Sir WILLIAM ARTHUR (1824–1891) , diplomatist, the son of Arthur White, who was in the British consular service, and Eliza Lila, daughter of Lieutenant-general William Gardiner Neville, was born in 1824, and educated at King William's College, Isle of Man, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He entered the consular service on 9 March 1857 as clerk to the consul-general at Warsaw. He frequently acted as consul-general; and on 9 Jan. 1861 he became vice-consul, again acting as consul-general for the greater part of 1862 and 1863. ”

“ But under our system, by the time a man understands his duties, he is removed. Nowhere else in the world is there so great a need for a permanent consular service as in China.
The British Government long ago established a separate consular service for the East, entirely distinct from that elsewhere, so that a man once in the Chinese service stays there, and is not likely to be transferred to a European or American post. ”

“ I claimed that the Consular and Diplomatic Services should be so co-ordinated that a good man in the Consular Service in Turkey might be promoted into the Diplomatic Service, and I instanced the case of Sir William White, one of the ablest Ambassadors we ever had in Constantinople, who had risen from being a consular clerk to the Embassy. ”

“ The English Consulate looks out over the Bund, but it is such a different Bund to the usual one of handsome houses and gardens touching the water's edge. This one is piled up with merchandise; great bales of goods, covered with matting, are stacked under the trees or strewn about the ground, and through the wide-opened windows come all day the shouts and cries of the strong-limbed coolies, as they lade and unlade the ships. A strange silence falls over the busy scene of the day, at night. ”

“ Attached to each Chancellery abroad should be a business or commercial expert, paid a fair and reasonable salary, who should make a study of British trade interests and who should control the whole consular service in the country to which he is attached. ”

“ One would suppose that such a document would have elicited some inquiry.But Haji Wali was a Persian protege, and proceedings between the Consulates had commenced before the petition was presented. The pseudo-British subject, having been acknowledged as a real one, must be supported. Consuls, like kings, may err, but must not own to error. No notice was taken of the Indian petition; worse still, no inquiry into the slave-affair was set on foot [FN#7] ; and it was discovered that the passport having been granted by a Consul-General could not with official etiquette be resumed by a Consul. ”

“ Besides the protection to their commerce given by the Navy, colonists enjoy as fully as British people themselves the use and advantage of the consular and diplomatic services of the Empire. The colonial merchant, {70} sailor, or shipmaster finds in every chief port of the world a consul to whom he can apply for protection—an officer whose services are paid for by the British taxpayer alone. The Imperial treasury maintains unaided the costly diplomatic staff which carries on the long and delicate negotiations in which the colonies are often more directly concerned than the mother-land itself. ”

“ This type of British Consul must be replaced by keen Britishers who have the interests of their country at heart and who are at the same time acquainted with the needs of the districts to which they are appointed. If we could only break with red tape, we could find numerous men, not far beyond the prime of life, but who have retired from an active part in business, who would gladly accept such appointments and place their knowledge at the disposal of their fellows.... ”