Consular service

“ 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. ”

“ In view of the growth of our interests in foreign countries and the encouraging prospects for a general expansion of our commerce, the question of an improvement in the consular service has increased in importance and urgency. Though there is no doubt that the great body of consular officers are rendering valuable services to the trade and industries of the country, the need of some plan of appointment and control which would tend to secure a higher average of efficiency can not be denied. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The consular service is more directly responsible for our trade relationships in the great centres of the world. Through our foreign service, also, Americans abroad, whether as tourists, or residents, are protected in person and in property interests. Appointments to the foreign service are made by the President with the advice of the Senate. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It must be remembered, however, that there are points of striking dissimilarity between the duties of the consuls of these two countries. The American consul is necessarily brought much into touch with the trade and commerce of the country to which he is assigned through the system of consular invoices (see Ad Valorem) ; in his ordinary reports he is not confined to one stereotyped form, and when preparing special reports (a valuable feature of the United States consular service) he is liberally treated as regards any expense to which he has been put in obtaining information. ”

“ This is the time for America to seize the opportunities and to use its special genius for organization and invention in extending its industrial preeminence. A great deal has been done already with very imperfect governmental machinery and more highly developed individual initiative.—To maintain and increase our industrial prominence we ought to have by far the best consular service in the world. ”

“ For a place in the administrative part of the Government not the mere henchman of some party leader or committee, but he who proves himself better qualified for the duties of the office than his competitors; for the consular service, not a mere political drummer or a man who has put some member of Congress under political obligation, but he who proves himself especially well versed in commercial affairs and law, and in command of the other necessary equipments for the performance of consular duty ”

“ Considering their initial qualifications, their social standing, and their great opportunities, it must be admitted that the men of distinction who have emerged from the consular service during the last fifty years seems disproportionately small. ”

“ The cost both of the consular service and of the election of the executive officers of the service should be met, not by appropriations from national governments, but by a fixed percentage of the revenues of each nation. The usefulness of the service itself to all the people of the world would be, eventually, the guarantee that the contribution of this percentage would be maintained. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ I am glad to say that of late years there have been many excellent exceptions to this rule; and one of my most earnest hopes, as a man loving my country and desirous of its high standing abroad, is that, more and more, the tendency, both as regards the consular and diplomatic service, may be in the direction of sending men carefully fitted for positions, and of retaining them without regard to changes in the home administration. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The American consular service has been frequently pointed out as a model to be followed in connexion with commercial matters. America, contrary to the European practice, has no consuls de carrière. Her consular representatives are appointed for a period of, as a rule, four years, andConsular Service. are selected in preference from commercial circles. Their work, as compared with that of British consuls, is rather limited, and they have nothing to monopolize their time like the shipping interests with which the British consular body is entrusted in most cor1r1trics=. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the contrary, every person of experience in such things knows that with every change of administration consulates are among active politicians in greater demand than any other class of offices—in fact they seem to have a peculiar charm for people's imagination;—that almost every politician of any degree thinks himself fit to be a consul ”

“ 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. ”

“ It may not be complimentary to our law-makers, but I assert that no fair-minded person can study the debates and the action of the two houses of Congress on matters touching appointments to office, without arriving at the conclusion that the patronage consideration, however it may be disguised, is an exceedingly potent one in the average Congressional mind, and that the idea of filching the juicy consular plums from his control strongly offends the ordinary Congressman's feelings as something especially wicked and un-American. ”

“ I shall also make my selections for nomination for the higher consular offices to be filled, from the incumbents of consulates of a lower grade by way of promotion.”
If the President does this there will be no constitutional question as to an encroachment upon his powers, for he does it of his own free will. It will be his way of exercising his powers and of performing his duties. This action will stand above all constitutional cavil. It is true, the President can only nominate, and his nominations will be subject to confirmation by the Senate. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Any Foreign Service officer may be assigned to duty in the Philippine Islands, under a commission as a consular officer, for such period as may be necessary and under such regulations as the Secretary of State may prescribe, during which assignment such officer shall be considered as stationed in a foreign country ”

“ The report justly says, that the best way to ascertain a man's qualification is to “examine him.” But it also, quite truthfully, sets forth that every attempt to do this, and to exclude the element of favoritism, of patronage, from the appointment of consuls by mere pass examinations has resulted in utter failure. ”

“ In the case of the persons referred to in paragraph 2 of this Article, their privileges and immunities shall come to an end when they cease to belong to the household or to be in the service of a member of the consular post provided, however, that if such persons intend leaving the receiving State within a reasonable period thereafter, their privileges and immunities shall subsist until the time of their departure. ”

“ 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 United States has an ambassador or minister in 54 different countries of the world. There are 314 foreign commercial cities where the United States has a consul general, consul, vice consul, or consular agent, who, among other duties, help steamship lines and great business establishments to promote commerce with the United States. Our consuls protect and assist the hundreds of American missionaries whose stations are in remote foreign regions of the world. ”