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Mr. ROGERS. There is one other point, is there not, Mr. Carr, that is, the especial application of this item, the contingent expense item, and also to the corresponding items for appropriations for the consular service, namely, that these several expenditures in the last two or three years have not included any expenditures to speak of in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Russia. Mr. CARR. Oh, yes.

Mr. ROGERS. Now, as far as the first four of them together are concerned, and perhaps as far as the fifth is concerned also, during the fiscal year for which we are appropriating, we shall have both embassies and legations on the one side, and consulates on the other, out of which you have paid very considerable expenses from this fund?

Mr. CARR. Certainly. We have no consulates in Germany, and have not had any there during the past year. There are no consulates in Austria. All are going to be established, and on a larger scale than during the prewar days, because of the greater number of duties that will have to be performed.

Mr. LINTHICUM. Are you doing anything in Russia at all?

Mr. CARR. No; there are no offices in Russia, with the exception of those in Vladivostok and Irkutsk, and several traveling officers in Siberia. We have had young men in Siberia ever since the revolution in Russia, to inform us of what was going on. It was necessary that the Secretary of State should know what Kolchak and Semenoff and others were doing; what they represented; how great their following was; their attitude toward the United States, and many other facts upon which the policy of this Government could be determined. These men have traveled back and forth over the TransSiberian Railroad, undergoing severe hardshps; suffering discomforts of all kinds, in order that the United States could be adequately informed and American interests be protected. As you already know, one of these officers who was dispatched to Turkestan in 1918, to keep the Government informed of the political and military situation there, and to endeavor to the best of his ability to obstruct the Germans in their efforts to obtain cotton and other necessary supplies from that region, was arrested and kept a prisoner by the Bolsheviki for 5 or 6 months, being for the most of the time in constant danger of execution. In southern Russia we have had a consul at Tiflis, and are now sending a consul general with a large staff to Odessa.

The indications are that trade will soon be resumed with Russia, and it may be necessary to return consuls to that country. In that case we shall no longer be able to carry on the work with consuls at Petrograd, Moscow, and Odessa, but our trade as well as the necessity of keeping well informed of the development in all parts of that country will make it necessary that we station officers at Novorossiisk or Rostof, Kief, Kharkof, Baku, Ekaterinburg, Omsk, Irkutsk, Samara, and numerous other places. This condition is also true of Turkey, Bulgaria, Roumania, and other places in the eastern part of Europe. There are several consuls in Turkey, one in Roumania, and one in Bulgaria at present, but once the United States enters into formal relations with those countries, it will no longer be able to extend proper protection to its own interests and those of

American citizens through the kind of diplomatic and consular organization which it possessed in 1914. There will have to be more offices, and those offices will have to be better staffed, and all of the expenses of operating the various offices will of necessity be much. greater than in 1914. Therefore, instead of estimating the needs in those countries on the basis of prewar conditions, due allowance must be made for the radical changes that have taken place in the basic conditions under which the two branches of the foreign service must be carried on.

The CHAIRMAN. You have had this appropriation for this item in 1913, 1914, and 1915?

Mr. CARR. Yes. In 1914, it was $75,000; in 1915. it was $100,000; in 1916, it was $100,000.

The CHAIRMAN. Where was this? Mr. CARR. In this particular item. $488,000, and in 1919, to $688,000.

But in 1918 it ran up to

Mr. HOUGHTON. That is your point right there. The other departments can decrease expenditures but apparently this department can not at this time.

Mr. CARR. That is very true; it can not. There are certain things that you will doubtless find can be properly reduced. There are certain things, on the other hand, which you can not reduce and discontinue without costing ultimately a great deal more than you would spend by appropriating the total requested.

Mr. HOUGHTON. The trouble I am afraid of, without professing to be an expert, is that unless we show a sound basis at the outset, with unexpended balances lying over, you may run into an arbitrary cut. That is the thing to be afraid of.

Mr. ROGERS. What percentage, very roughly speaking, of the necessary increase of your total foreign-intercourse budget would have been attributed in 1914 and 1915 to the nonintercourse countries which I enumerated a moment ago-Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Russia?

Mr. CARR. I can not say, but I could figure it out for you.

Mr. ROGERS. I think it might be of interest to guess whether it was 20 per cent or 30 per cent, because right there you would account for that much of an increase over last year. In respect to Russia and Germany, our service has been and still is withdrawn from those countries, but with respect to Austria, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Roumania we are expending practically as much as we did before the war, having at present a commissioner in Vienna, a consul and a mission in Turkey, a mission in Poland, a high commissioner and a consul general in Constantinople, consuls in Prague and two or three places in Russia, and consuls at various places in the Balkans.

While technically our officers have been withdrawn up until comparatively recently from these countries, actually the expense has not been lessened, but rather increased. A large amount of business, such as ascertaining what was going on in these countries in order that the executive branch of the Government might know what policy should be adopted, has required a doubling or trebling of forces around the countries mentioned, at considerably greater expense than would have been the case had the officers resumed their old posts in the countries themselves. Prices have been increased, lines of communication have been destroyed, transportation has been

interrupted, so as to greatly increase the expenditure of the Government, while on the other hand, owing to the interruption of exports from those countries to the United States, the income from consular fees has been greatly reduced.

Mr. HOUGHTON. Might I make a suggestion, Mr. Chairman? Would it be possible, instead of taking the bill as a detailed mass of figures, to have Mr. Carr, or somebody, give us in a large way, in four or five or six groups, the reason why these large sums are required not so much here and here, but in general terms?

The CHAIRMAN. How about that, Mr. Carr?

Mr. CARR. Yes.

Mr. HOUGHTON. What I am trying to get is a picture of the situation.

Mr. CARR. That falls very definitely into two or three groups. In the first place, you have your foreign intercourse proper. In the next place, you have the Diplomatic Service. In the next place vo have the Consular Service. They fall definitely into several groups in which you can draw pretty well a line between these peace-time expenditures and war-time expenditures and see why wartime expenditures must continue.

Mr. HOUGHTON. That is exactly what I am trying to get.

Mr. CARR. Why you can not just discontinue them now is because there are certain things in which the interests of America must be carried on. That is true of this diplomatic appropriation here, in this particular item of which we were speaking. As I figure the expenditures, there are nearly $400,000 of that $688,000 being spent at a small group of offices loaded with war-time expenditures that can not just yet be discontinued. We must not reduce the Copenhagen office until we have opened up with the Central Powers and reestablished our own offices there, because if we do then we will not know what is going on in the Central Powers.

The CHAIRMAN. The reasons are good.

Mr. CARR. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you put that in writing and furnish the best argument you can?

Mr. CARR. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection, we will adjourn until 10 o'clock to-morrow morning.

(Thereupon, at 12.15 o'clock p. m., the committee adjourned, to meet again at 10 o'clock Saturday, January 10, 1920.)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
Saturday, January 10, 1920.

The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. Stephen G. Porter (chairman) presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Carr, you may proceed with the next item.

STATEMENT OF MR. WILBUR J. CARR, DIRECTOR OF THE CONSULAR SERVICE, AND MR. TRACY LAY, AMERICAN CONSUL.

SALARIES, INTERPRETERS TO EMBASSIES AND LEGATIONS.

Mr. CARR. Mr. Chairman, on page 6 there are a few bracketed words where the language of this bill disagrees with the language of the appropriation for the current year. I would like the committee to accept the italicized phraseology in preference to that in the brackets.

On page 7 lines 16, 17, 18, and 19 were, for some reason, omitted from the estimates, and I think it ought to go into the bill and that the committee should disregard the brackets. In lines 1 and 14 the same observation applies as in respect to the bracketed language on page 6.

Mr. NEWTON. In reference to the language in lines 16, 17, 18, and 19, on page 7, do you propose explaining that later?

Mr. CARR. You mean in regard to the withdrawal of the brackets? Mr. NEWTON. Are you going into the reasons for that?

Mr. CARR. I can give you those reasons now. That provision was put in the Diplomatic and Consular appropriation bill some years ago as a precautionary measure to prevent the possibility of anyone drawing the salary of an interpreter or a student interpreter being allowed any part of the salary appropriated for the secretary of legation or of any other officer. As a matter of fact, the comptroller would not have allowed that.

Mr. NEWTON. What was the reason for leaving it there?

Mr. CARR. I think that, since Congress has carried that provision in the bill as a safeguard, Congress would perhaps prefer to have it in the bill, and there is no reason why it should not be.

CONTINGENT EXPENSES, FOREIGN MISSIONS.

On page 8, lines 4 to 22, there is an item for contingent expenses for foreign missions. This is another of the lump-sum appropriations, the items of expenditure of which and the estimated items of which I shall put in the record in the fullest manner possible. I may say further that the expenditures for the year ending June 30, 1919, will be included in the minutest detail in the Secretary's report, which will be sent to the Congress next week, I think. Therefore the entire expenditure of this sum is open to the fullest inspection and consideration by Congress.

Detailed statement of expenditures made by missions abroad for contingent expenses from appropriation, "Contingent expenses foreign missions," fiscal year 1919.

Messenger, janitor, etc__

Amount. $192, 140. 24

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The following is the estimated rate of present expenditures under the appropriation for the fiscal year 1919-20:

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The purpose of this appropriation, as it appears from the language of it, is to provide for the ordinary running expenses of the Diplomatic Service. That is, for rent, for telegraphing, for postage, stationery, furniture, heating, lighting, office equipment, and for loss by exchange, which has been considerable.

Out of this whole amount there are two conspicuous items, one for telegrams and the other for loss by exchange. Those are only two items, but they are large ones. That spent out of this fund for telegrams for last year amounted to $705,000.

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