Consular agent

“ As a general rule, this notification shall be given in advance. The receiving State may make the admission as acting head of post of a person who is neither a diplomatic agent nor a consular officer of the sending State in the receiving State conditional on its consent.
3. The competent authorities of the receiving State shall afford assistance and protection to the acting head of post. While he is in charge of the post, the provisions of the present Convention shall apply to him on the same basis as to the head of the consular post concerned. ”

“ To the consuls of other nations the United States government have always accorded the privileges of arresting deserters, and of being themselves amenable only to the Federal and not to the States courts. They also recognize foreign consuls as representative suitors for absent foreigners.
The United States commercial agents are appointed by the president, and usually receive an exequatur. They form a class by themselves, and are distinct from the consular agents, who are simply deputy consuls in districts where there is no principal consul. ”

“ I find that after Americans, Germans make the best American consular agents, and Englishmen the best German consular agents, while French consular agents would be more useful to their countrymen if they could speak French as well as they do Spanish. ”

“ 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 ”

“ During my former Administration I took occasion to recommend a recast of the laws relating to the consular service, in order that it might become a more efficient agency in the promotion of the interests it was intended to subserve. The duties and powers of consuls have been expanded with the growing requirements of our foreign trade. Discharging important duties affecting our commerce and American citizens abroad, and in certain countries exercising judicial functions, these officers should be men of character, intelligence, and ability. ”

“ Four of them were from citizens in various parts of the United States who seemed to regard the consul at Coralio as a cyclopædia of information. They asked long lists of questions, numerically arranged, about the climate, products, possibilities, laws, business chances, and statistics of the country in which the consul had the honour of representing his own government.
“Write ’em, please, Billy,” said that inert official, “just a line, referring them to the latest consular report. Tell ’em the State Department will be delighted to furnish the literary gems. Sign my name. ”

“ That it may sometimes happen that consuls are so charged is recognized by section 1738 of the Revised Statutes, which provides: 'No consular officer shall exercise diplomatic functions, or hold any diplomatic correspondence or relation on the part of the United States, in, with, or to, the government or country to which he is appointed, or any other country or government, when there is in such country any officer of the United States authorized to perform diplomatic functions therein ”

“ Crawford, ubi supra, it was said by Chief Justice TANEY that, 'in this country, as well as others, it often happens that the consular office is conferred by a foreign government on one of our own citizens.' It is because of this practice that the question has frequently arisen as to the extent to which citizens of a country, exercising the functions of foreign consuls, are exempt from the political and municipal duties which are imposed upon their fellow citizens. ”

“ Under our present system of patronage appointments there is little security that the men appointed are qualified for their duties. In some places, notably in important positions, in Great Britain, Germany, and other European countries, we have been fortunate enough to secure men not only of the highest natural capacity, but admirably equipped, and their consular reports have been a credit to the service and of immense value to our commerce. ”

“ But in view of the fact that in the same manner many inefficient and generally improper persons have found their way into the Consular service, and that this method of appointment encourages, with every change of administration, sweeping removals of Consular officers, when after some years of service they have acquired a certain desirable degree of experience and efficiency, it will be admitted that this is certainly not a system calculated to give the American business community as good a Consular representation abroad as it should have. ”

“ The public obligation to him will of course be much greater if he employs his official influence to the utmost, as I earnestly hope he will, toward accomplishing what the business community of the country has so long and so vainly been praying for—that is a system of examinations for Consular positions that will really rescue the Consular service from the deleterious touch of spoils politics, and bring to it the best attainable ability and character. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Very few of our consuls, either in South America or in the Orient, are acquainted with the language in which they are required to transact much of their business. In non-Christian countries, where consuls are charged with civil and criminal jurisdiction, and may not only try civil causes between Americans and foreigners but may sentence our citizens to fine, imprisonment, or even death, American consuls are not lawyers. ”

“ The promptitude with which the reports of the consuls are printed and distributed, the generous recognition which is being increasingly accorded by our business interests to the practical value of their efforts for enlarging trade, and the continued testimony of competent foreign authorities to the general superiority of their commercial work, have naturally had a stimulating effect upon its consular corps as a whole, and experience in the discharge of their duties adds greatly to their efficiency. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By no means, for the principal part of that reform, the introduction of the competitive merit system for the filling of consular offices, can be compassed without any legislation by Congress. It is simply in the hand of the President alone. He can say: “The Constitution confers upon me the power and the duty to nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint consuls. The business of nominating—of selecting suitable persons for examination—rests with me. I consider it my duty to select for nomination the fittest persons I can find. ”

“ The jurisdiction of an ambassador over the members of his train is limited to minor matters. A criminal would be sent home for trial, the ambassador collecting and forwarding all the evidence.
I have purposely deferred the subject of the selection of diplomatic officers until after a consideration of the service itself, in order that we may the better understand what is needed in such an officer.
It will be observed that the requirements for a successful diplomat are wholly unlike those for a consul. To be successful in the consular service one must first of all be a good business man. ”

“ Nothing can be more self evident to any man of experience than that, as the Civil Service Commission expresses it, “It is to the competitive system, which has so greatly improved the other parts of the service, that we must look for the permanent betterment of the consular branch.” ”

“ The merchants understand that if our consular service is to be an effective help to American commerce, and a credit to the American name, it must not be subject to periodical partisan lootings, and our consuls must not be appointed by way of favor to some influential politician, but upon a methodical ascertainment of their qualifications for the consular business; then to be promoted according to merit, and also to be salaried as befits respectable agents and representatives of a great nation. ”

“ Consuls shall exercise their functions only on receipt of an exequatur from the Government to which they are accredited. Consular authorities shall be bona fide officials. No merchants shall be permitted to exercise the duties of the office, nor shall Consular Officers be allowed to engage in trade. ”

“ Each Kingdom is to have its right to decide on the establishment of its own Consular service; the identical laws are only to regulate the relations between the Consuls on the one side, and the Minister for Foreign affairs and diplomatic representatives on the other. The laws are especially designed to give a guarantee that the consuls do not outstep the boundaries of their occupation and at the same time secure the necessary cooperation between the Foreign Administration and the Consular Services of the two Kingdoms24:1. ”

“ The consular body was good —remarkably good when one considers the radically vicious policy which prevails in the selection and retention of its members. But the more I saw of it, the stronger became my conviction that the first thing needed is that, when our government secures a thoroughly good man in a consular position, it should keep him there; and, moreover, that it should establish a full system of promotions for merit. Under the present system the rule is that, as soon as a man is fit for the duties, he is rotated out of office and supplanted by a man who has all his duties to learn. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Pierre, Martinique
Oh, these comfortable American consuls of the tropics! They live among flowers and palms, arise late and go to their town offices by noon; then “business” grows dull and they bolt the office at three or four o’clock and take flight to a gardened home, in some cool mountain suburb, to rest from the wearisome grind of diplomacy. Would that we all might rise to the dolce far niente of an American consulate! But after all we need them; for if our flag is now seldom seen in out-of-the-way ports, who but the American consul will protect the wandering American? ”

“ The interests of our country demand that our diplomatic and consular service should be fixed by a general law, subject of course to necessary changes, to be recommended by the department, and not undergo this annual tinkering, to which no other branch of the government and no other class of officials are subjected. ”

“ And in response, the President in his recent message briefly refers to the subject in saying: “It is much to be desired that our consular system be established by law on a basis providing for appointment and promotion only in consequence of proved fitness.”
Attempts at legislation to reform the consular service have actually been made. There are now two bills pending in Congress, both of which have great merit—one introduced by Senator Lodge of the Senate, the other by Mr. ”

“ By this means full particulars of each case of naturalization in the United States would be secured and properly indexed and recorded, and thus many cases of spurious citizenship would be detected and unjust responsibilities would be avoided.
The reorganization of the consular service is a matter of serious importance to our national interests. The number of existing principal consular offices is believed to be greater than is at all necessary for the conduct of the public business. ”

“ In the case of a foreign wreck the consul is held to be the agent of the foreign owner. Much of the notarial business which is imposed on consuls, partly by statute and partly by the request of private parties, consists in taking the declarations as to registry, transfers, &c., under the Mercantile Shipping Acts. Consuls in the Ottoman empire, China, Siam and Korea have extensive judicial and executive powers. ”

“ But in other positions, especially the smaller ones, the political removals and appointments which had been repeated every four years up to the time of the present administration, have made the term of the consul's service so short that, with the meagre pay allowed, first-class men cannot be secured. ”

“ Warden in his treatise on 'The Origin and Nature of Consular Establishments,' that the consul was originally an officer of large judicial as well as commercial powers, exercising entire municipal authority over his countrymen in the country to which he was accredited. ”