DEFICIENCY OR SURPLUS IN THE SETTLEMENT OF CONSULS' ACCOUNTS EACH YEAR BETWEEN THE PAYMENT FOR SALARIES, INCLUDING Loss BY EXCHANGE, AND THE AMOUNT OF FEES REMITTED.

The allowances made to consuls in addition to their salaries, by the government of the United States, although less meagre than formerly, are still moderate. At certain posts, precisely designated by law, there is an allowance for clerk hire, the total sum thus authorized being $51,000. Consuls are generally allowed for office rent to an amount, until recently, not exceeding ten per cent, but now not exceeding twenty per cent, of their respective salaries. They are furnished at government expense with stationery for official purposes, the arms of the United States, seals, flags, and bookcases (only one at a time of any of these things), and are reimbursed their actual payments for postages and some other miscellaneous matters of absolutely necessary expenditure; but their accounts are subjected to a strict scrutiny, and they find themselves obliged to pay from their own pockets for many things which it often seems to them might reasonably be considered proper objects for allowance from the government.

The allowances now authorized, compared with those previously made, would perhaps be regarded as sufficient, if they were not fettered by the specific language of the law, and if an account supported by vouchers were not required for every item. It is worthy of consideration, whether it would not be just as well (either with or without raising the percentage from twenty to twenty-five per cent of the salary) to make the allowance cover not only office rent, but all other incidentals whatsoever (excepting clerk hire and postages), certified by the consul as necessarily expended by him in the due discharge of his consular duties and the maintenance of his consular office. This, as we shall presently have occasion to explain, is the British usage, and it has one obvious advantage, in saving a world of red tape and of accounting-officers' time in the examination of vouchers and accounts. It is rarely, if ever, that the limit of expenditure authorized by law in such things is not fully attained. There is an infinity of detail involving expense to a consul for which no provision is now made, often in matters insignificant in themselves and not pleasant to talk about. For instance, no American citizen who has occasion to visit a consulate abroad, likes to see the windows dirty and the floor covered with filth. But who does he suppose ought to have washed the windows or swept out the office in the morning? The government does not allow a cent for any such expense. It would appear to be the theory of the government that the consul should wash his own windows and sweep his own office, on Jefferson's principle, that one is sure a thing is well done when he does it himself. Even clerk hire is allowed but at few places; a charge for anything like a porter or messenger would startle the accounting-officers at Washington like Oliver Twist's demand for a second helping of soup. So, also, the visiting citizen is probably pleased to find the consular office warmed in winter; and if it is open in the evening (as very many are kept open for the convenience of travellers, or at certain times, at seaports, for the convenience of ship-masters) it ought to be lighted; but no allowance for fuel or lights would pass in an account. Prior to 1852, indeed, consuls were expected to pay themselves for the paper on which they wrote their despatches and the pens with which they wrote them. Mr. VOL. CXXIII.- NO. 251. 22

Donald E. Mitchell (Ik Marvel), in his amusing account of his experiences as consul at Venice, attributes the allowance by the government of charges for official stationery to Mr. Edward Everett's brief term of service as Secretary of State. But even now, the consul must pay for the table on which he places his inkstand and paper, and (if not for the chair in which he sits himself) for the chairs in which the people sit who come to see him on business. Bookcases are the only articles of office furniture allowed to consular officers at government expense; and of these only one at a time. We have known of consuls ingenious enough to construct a plan of a bookcase that would also serve as a table or desk to write upon; but to make a set of chairs of any article that could be vouched for as a bookcase we believe has baffled even consular ingenuity.

All trouble about a vast variety of matters of this sort would be obviated by a fixed allowance for miscellaneous expenses of all kinds, proportionate to the salary; with the exception of clerk hire and postages, which we suggest as exceptions for obvious reasons. This might be done, and vouchers still be required; but we think it would be found advisable to adopt in this respect also the usage of the British government. As we have already said, when the amount of expenditure is limited, a voucher furnishes very little protection to the government; in the case of an officer willing to impose upon the government, no protection at all. The necessity for giving vouchers is often a source of great inconvenience, a hardship which presses most heavily on those consuls who are most sensitive about the scrupulous exactness of their accounts. We select for example this matter of office rent, the allowance of which is so gratefully accepted by consuls that they willingly undergo much annoyance to become entitled to it. A separate account is required for each quarter's rent, supported by a voucher showing that just the amount claimed in dollars and cents in gold was paid and received for that quarter's rent; the quarters being of course quarters of the Gregorian calendar year. But suppose the consul's post is in a Mohammedan country, where a year is but 354 days, corresponding neither at beginning or end with the Christian year; and suppose the custom of the country is to pay rents a year in advance, and that considerable pecuniary

advantage results from a compliance with this custom. It is easy to say these things can be explained to the landlord, who will be glad enough to give vouchers to a paying tenant in any form required. Suppose, however, the landlord is a rich proprietor, or that he is an invisible and soulless corporation, like the Trustees of the Sears Estate in Boston, or the Vestry of Trinity Church in New York, owning large amounts of real estate and having their own usages and forms, on their side, to which they expect tenants to conform. To begin with, for the consul to be obliged to tell such people that he expects to be reimbursed the rentmoney by his government, (and that so rich!) is to double the landlord's charge at the very threshold of the negotiation. These are no imaginary suppositions, but actual facts. How easy the temptation to the consul to abandon the landlord altogether, and get his official vouchers signed by somebody else; for who at Washington can possibly know who his landlord really is? Many people occupying offices in Boston or New York could not give the name of their landlords, that is, the actual owners of the buildings where their offices are situated, to save their lives. We must not be misunderstood; it is not at all probable that vouchers are rendered in excess of the sums expended; but this is due to the honesty of the consul and the meagreness of the allowance, not to any additional security furnished by the voucher.

If we turn from our own consular system to that of Great Britain, the only country rivalling the United States as a commercial power, we find that ours is an establishment as strong as theirs in the numbers, at least, of its personnel, but maintained at an inferior cost, the difference indeed being so considerable as to suggest almost irresistibly the inference that either we pay too little, or our cousins too much, for substantially the same thing. The British consular establishment consists of 33 consuls-general, 137 consuls, 414 vice-consuls, and 54 consular agents. Nearly all of these officers are paid salaries, or receive fixed allowances, or enjoy both of these sources of personal emolument from the government exchequer. A few consuls are designated in the lists as "unpaid," but none are compensated by fees, that system being unknown in their service. The British exact a very much smaller amount of

fees than ourselves, and all that is exacted is received into the exchequer. It is difficult to make a just comparison of the numbers of the two services, if vice-consuls and consular agents are included, because these classes of officers (especially the latter) stand on a different basis in our service, and are much more numerous. Taking paid consuls-general and consuls together, we have 185 against 170 in the British service. But it must be remembered that Great Britain has occasion to maintain but eleven consulates in the United States, while that Empire with the vast extent of its colonial dominions furnishes about sixty posts which we must fill with consuls-general or consuls to whom salaries are paid, besides fourteen more who are allowed to retain the fees they receive. Without going too closely into the comparison, it is perhaps fair to assume that each of the two countries maintains about the same number of consulates of the same degree of importance as the other in places not falling within the jurisdiction of either; the preponderance, however, being on the side of Great Britain.

Our service costs, as we have seen, for salaries, $411,500; for clerk hire, $51,000; for office rent, if estimated at the maximum, $79,400; and some other allowances, which may raise the whole sum to $600,000, more than the whole of which is reimbursed and cancelled by the amount of fees paid into the treasury by consuls.

On the other hand, the British government pays to consulsgeneral and consuls, salaries amounting to £100,000 sterling, besides making them allowances to an additional amount of £28,000, which they may use for clerk hire, office rent, or such other matters as appear to them respectively proper subjects of government expenditure, without rendering specific accounts therefor, and without furnishing vouchers. In addition, the British government pays to vice-consuls and consular agents salaries amounting to £20,000, with allowances amounting to £6,500. The aggregate of these sums is £ 154,500. Against this expenditure, the amount of fees remitted home from the several British consulates in recent years has been the following: