pay that until the disposition of that association in some other way is determined.

INTERPARLIAMENTARY UNION.

The CHAIRMAN. The next item is, "Nineteenth Conference Interparliamentary Union." I saw Mr. McKinley this morning and he said he would like to be heard in case there was any objection to that item.

Mr. MOORES. You know we invited them to meet here and they have not accepted. This provides for an appropriation of $40,000. Mr. ROGERS. I am opposed to this item.

Mr. SABATH. To what item?

Mr. ROGERS. To this item on page 23. I think I ought, in fairness, to say that, in case Mr. McKinley wants to be heard.

Mr. MOORES. I will ask that Dr. S. D. North be heard, and I desire to be heard, if there is any objection.

(There was a roll call of the House.)

The CHAIRMAN. I would like very much to continue, as Mr. Mondell and the Speaker are very anxious to get this bill on the floor. We could declare a recess of 30 minutes to go down and answer the roll call and then come back. I believe that we ought to finish with Mr. Carr to-day and the other items as soon as we can.

Mr. MASON. I want to be heard on some of those items.

The CHAIRMAN. We will be delighted to hear you. I think we had better take a recess for an hour so that we may get lunch. (Whereupon at 12.10 the committee took a recess.)

AFTER RECESS.

The committee reassembled at the expiration of the recess.

STATEMENT OF MR. WILBUR J. CARR, DIRECTOR OF THE CONSULAR SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF STATE-Resumed.

Mr. CARR. 1 think we had just finished with the Interparliamentary Union, on page 23.

The CHAIRMAN. That is a treaty obligation, is it not?

Mr. CARR. That is a treaty obligation, with the International Commission on Public and Private International Law. Work is supposed to be under way on that, and has been under way since, I think, about 1915; but, so far as I can find, none of the money has thus far been spent.

SALARIES, CONSULAR SERVICE.

The CHAIRMAN. The next is salaries in the Consular Service.

Mr. CARR. For salaries in the Consular Service there is no increase requested. Inasmuch as last year Congress gave us a considerable increase, it was not thought that we should ask for an additional appropriation this year. Indec, under the rule which the Cabinet adopted, we would have been unable to ask for an increase in the scale of salaries this year, because the decision was that no increases in salaries should be requested in the estimates.

The CHAIRMAN. What were the appropriations for the item in 1914 and 1915?

Mr. CARR. The appropriations in 1914 and 1915 were $1,062,000; in 1916, $1,107,000; in 1917, $1,164,000; in 1918 and 1919, $1,233,500; and last year $1,974,500.

Mr. ROGERS. You are asking the same amount this year as last year?

Mr. CARR. We are asking the same amount this year as last. Not only do we need the number of men we have but the amount appropriated for their salaries is really at a rate considerably lower than the purchasing value of those salaries in 1914.

When I say that our salaries are really on a scale at present of $2,500 to $3,000 for a vice consul, of $3,000 to $8,000 for a consul and consul general, there being only two posts above $8,000, I think I can show easily that our salaries do not reach the standard set by the old salary scale of the British, by which they give their consuls from $3,893 to $4,866, or, with their representation allowance, $4,379 to $6,812. Our consuls general receive from $5,500 to $8,000; there being only two places above $8,000, I do not include them. The British, on the other hand, receive in salary and representative allowance $6,325 to $9,245, and, in addition to the representation allowance and the salary, they give, according to the needs of each post, a local allowance similar to our post allowance, the amount of which I do not happen to have.

But you will see at a glance that their salaries, generally speaking, are considerably in advance of our salaries and their allowances are more numerous and more generous than our allowances.

So that the point I am really making is that I think this salary scale of ours is an absolute minimum, and I think that Congress will have to be asked in the very near future to reconsider the salary scale and the total income of our officers abroad.

Mr. CONNALLY. When you ask for that $1,974,500, does the law fix the compensation of consuls?

Mr. CARR. Yes.

Mr. CONNALLY. Or does it merely fix the classifications at which you have power to appoint?

Mr. CARR. The law says that there shall be consuls general at $12,000, $8,000, $6,000, $5,500, and $4,500, and consuls at $8,000, $6,000, $5,000, $4,000, $3,500, $3,000, $2,500, and $2,000.

Mr. CONNALLY. Does the act say how many there shall be of each class?

Mr. CARR. No; the act does not provide that.

Mr. CONNALLY. It leaves that up to the State Department; is that correct?

Mr. CARR. It leaves it to the State Department to say how many shall be in each class. But, understand, the State Department's action on that matter is governed by several considerations. In the first place, it must maintain a relationship between the different classes which will afford a safe basis of promotion from a lower class to a higher class; that is to say, you can not have a great many men in a higher class and only a few men in a lower class, because then you will not have any satisfactory opportunity for selection when you come to promotion. On the other hand, no promotion of any officer can be made without the advice and consent of the Senate; so that at least one House of Congress always has absolute control of the number of men who shall be in each class.

Mr. CONNALLY. Do you mean that every time a man is raised from class 2 to class 1 he has to be reappointed and confirmed by the Senate?

Mr. CARR. He has to be reappointed and confirmed by the Senate, exactly as in the case of Army and Navy officers.

Mr. ROGERS. And that is true of the secretaries also?

Mr. CARR. That is true of secretaries of legations and embassies. So that Congress has at all times, through the Senate, complete control of every step that is taken in the matter of promotion and of the regulation of the number of men in each class; and the salaries of the various classes are all fixed by law, and the total appropriation is limited by Congress. While giving the Executive a certain amount of latitude in readjusting classes, as was found desirable last year, when on the recommendation of the Secretary of State a certain increase in the appropriation was made, with the distinct understanding that we should just omit class 5 of consuls general, at $4,500, and raise the minimum of that office to $5,500; that we should omit the eighth and ninth grades of consuls, $2,500 and $2,000, and make the entrance to the service $3,000 or $3,500, Congress made the appropriation, fixed the limit upon the appropriation, and it then rested with the Executive and the Senate to make that readjustment; and that is a very much more satisfactory way. It is really a much more businesslike way than to specify in the leg. islation the number of men in each class, thus making a hard-and-fast rule over a considerable period of time and taking up the time of Congress through a course of hearings for the purpose of getting two or three more in one class and two or three less in another class. Mr. ROGERS. May I ask two or three questions here, Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. Certainly.

Mr. ROGERS. The law provides that every consul general, consul, vice consul, and wherever practicable, every consular agent shall be an American citizen. That, of course, is an absolute mandate, so far as the consuls general, consuls, and vice consuls are concerned. Are there any exceptions now employed by the department to that mandate?

Mr. CARR. Consuls general, consuls, and vice consuls? Every consul general, consul, and vice consul in the service is an American citizen; there are no exceptions.

Mr. ROGERS. What is the proportion of citizens to noncitizens among consular agents?

Mr. CARR. The total number of consular agents who are American citizens is 61; the total number of foreigners is 47. And I may say there that one of the purposes for which you appropriated last year a sum for approximately, 150 vice consuls of career, was for the purpose of replacing those foreign consular agents. We are, unfortunately, not very far along in that, because we have not been able to get a very large number of career vice consuls thus far. We are having an examination again on the 19th of this month for consuls and vice consuls, and our ultimate aim is to replace the majority, if not all, of these consular agents who are foreigners with vice consuls of career.

Mr. ROGERS. Well, of course, I am very thoroughly in sympathy with the Americanization movement in the department, as you know from experience.

Mr. CARR. Yes.

Mr. ROGERS. At the same time, there are consular agents of the United States at certain places that I can-I recall, like Bloemfontein, South Africa, and Oaxaco, Mexico, where they get only $2.50, or $5, or $10 a year as their compensation.

Mr. CARR. Yes.

Mr. ROGERS. And members of the committee will recall that they get one-half of the fees taken in; and I think at Bloemfontein, for example, the annual fees the last time I looked it up amounted to $5, so that the compensation of the consular agent there was $2.50; and it would be clearly uneconomical and undesirable, at this stage, at least, to impose a hard-and-fast rule on the State Department to supply American citizens at minute and unimportant places like that.

Mr. CARR. I frankly think that there are places, and there may be found to be a considerable number of places from time to time, where it is really not worth while to send a salaried American and to pay all the expenses of running an office, when you can get the little amount of work-a little notarial work and perhaps a few invoices signed-done by a business man there who will do it for the small proportion of the fees which he receives, and be glad to represent the United States in that humble capacity.

That, however, has to be watched with a good deal of care. Occasionally, you will find that you can get from a local business man, by giving him the designation, for instance, of consular agent, a very considerable service for the United States Government, merely because he is honored by the designation, and he will go out of his way, and has means with which to go out of his way, to serve the interests of the United States. But you can not lay out a hard-andfast rule that that is always a good thing to do.

Mr. ROGERS. You expect, however, to increase the 61 Americans and decrease the 47 foreigners within the next fiscal year quite materially, I gather?

Mr. CARR. Yes; we hope to get from the next examination an additional number of vice consuls, in which case we hope to supplant a number of these foreign consular agents with men of that description.

Mr. ROGERS. I think the other figures which you have on that statement in your hand would be of interest to the committee. Mr. CARR. I will say that consular agents are paid by one-half the fees they collect, provided that their total compensation shall in no case exceed $1,000 in any fiscal year.

Twenty-eight of these agents-18 Americans and 10 foreigners— get compensation ranging from $500 to $1,000 a year. Eighty of them, 43 Americans and 37 foreigners, get compensation ranging from nothing to $500 a year. So that, out of the total number of consular agents, 108, there are only 28 who receive a compensation in excess of $500 a year.

Mr. CONNALLY. You have no consul at Luxemburg, have you? You have a consular agent there, have you not?

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Mr. CARR. We have none now; we had a consular agent there who was a native of Luxemburg.

Mr. CONNALLY. You say you have none there now?

Mr. CARR. We have none now.

Mr. CONNALLY. You did have one last year, did you not?

Mr. CARR. We did have one there until about the middle of the war period, I believe.

Mr. CONNALLY. Well, I was over there last spring, and I thought we met the consular agent.

Mr. CARR. A man of the name of Lerulle used to be consular agent there.

Mr. CONNALLY. I thought he was still acting; he was a citizen of Luxemburg; he had been to the United States a number of times. Mr. CARR. He is no longer consular agent; I have forgotten whether he died or resigned.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Carr, I received yesterday from the Department of Commerce one of their daily series of Commerce Reports. This particular one is for December 20, and is an article on Finland; and the author is said in the article to be "Diplomatic Commissioner Thornwell Haynes, Helsingfors, Finland." It is dated September 23, 1919. That was rather a new species of nomenclature to me, and I wondered how that title had been created.

Mr. CARR. I do not think the State Department is acquainted with the title of "diplomatic commissioner." Mr. Haynes has, however, the title of American commissioner; it really means about the same thing. Mr. Haynes was sent to Finland as our consul before I was going to say before the recognition of the Government of Finland; I am not so sure about that. But later, when the United States Government recognized the independence of Finland and the establishment of the republic, it had to be represented in some official capacity; and it had no appropriation for the salary of a minister; and it gave Mr. Haynes the title of commissioner. He has been acting as commissioner ever since, and still is acting, although there is at present a chargé d'affaires on the way to Helsingfors to take the place of Mr. Haynes.

Mr. ROGERS. Is American commissioner a diplomatic title?

Mr. CARR. American commissioner is not a diplomatic title, but is a title used where this Government has not any official or regular relations with a so-called de facto government, but needs a representative there.

Mr. ROGERS. From what funds is a diplomatic commissioner paid? Mr. CARR. Mr. Haynes draws his consular salary, plus an allowance made from the emergency fund for such extraordinary expenses as were to be incurred by maintaining an establishment as commissioner.

Mr. ROGERS. Well, we recognized Finland, as I recall, over a year ago, did we not?

Mr. CARR. Yes, I think so.

Mr. ROGERS. My recollection is that it was in July, 1918; but Dr. Temple may remember that date better than I do..

Mr. TEMPLE. No, I do not remember it.

The CHAIRMAN. I think it was in November. The order of recognition was Finland, Poland, and Czechoslovakia; and Poland was in January.