Mr. CARR. I do not know that I can give you the apportionment of countries. I can give you actual allotments made to secretaries in the Diplomatic Service. I would be glad to put that in the record.

Mr. ROGERS. I think we ought to have it.
Mr. SABATH. Together with the salaries.

Apportionment, by countries, of allotment of post allowances to secretaries in the diplomatic service for 1919–20.

Mr. CARR. I will also put into the record, if you please, the entire allotment made to the Consular Service for officers, which was printed in the Senate hearing last year. I can not put into the record the final determination of the allowances to consular officers for the current year, because, as I say, the last year's allotments have not been modified in the matter of exchange. It is in process of being done right now. But you can count on the allotments being reduced from the total sum of $490,000 to $245,000.

Mr. HOUGHTON. No other use is made for post-allowance money than that you have cited, I suppose?

Mr. CARR. No; none whatever. The principles that I have given to the committee are the principles which govern the entire expenditure of the entire allotment, using our discretion as far as we can to hold the service together and to make it accurate and to use the money to that end.

Mr. MASON. I do not know, Mr. Chairman, whether the committee has taken any action. I have been necessarily absent on account of my health. But, for one, I shall favor the increase recommended by the department. I think we ought to take care of our people over there. Mr. Rogers, has any vote been taken?

Mr. ROGERS. No votes have been taken on any provisions of the bill.

Mr. MASON. I might have to be absent to-morrow and I wanted my position known.

Mr. CARR. I would like to add one further word, Mr. Chairman, and that is in this matter of post allowances, when it was first begun in the midst of the war it was of course entirely a new development. It was an experiment. The press of conditions growing out of the war which had to be met did not permit us to erect any satisfactory machinery--I mean machinery which would work precise justice to every man in the service and get a precise result to our entire satisfaction in every instance. Now, as we have gone on we have sought

Mr. MASON (interposing). There are no two cases alike. They could not be.

Mr. CARR. No. It is a question not only of statistics and the study of them, but it is a question of a man's own estimates, a question of the importance to be attached to the office, which is a matter after all for the Secretary of State to determine. All of those things enter in, but we are building, and if we are fortunate enough to have a continuance of this appropriation, in proper amount, we will I think by the beginning of the next session of Congress be in a position to have compiled a fairly accurate system upon which these appropriations can be made, and one which I think will be easily understood and be of great help to the members of this committee in presenting this question to the whole body of Congress. It is a thing that has to be worked out gradually, and as I stated the other day. I think it will be found to be possible to devise a system of index numbers or the equivalent which will regulate the allowance to be made in each country.

Mr. TEMPLE. And the index numbers would have, of course, to be modified from time to time because price statistics change rapidly? Mr. CARR. Quite so.

(At this point the chairman left the room and Mr. Rogers assumed the chair.)

Mr. ROGERS. The next item is a recommendation of $1,200,000 for clerk hire at United States consulates, which is the same amount. as that carried in the current law?

Mr. CARR. Yes.

Mr. ROGERS. Is there an opportunity to effect a proper reduction of that item this year, Mr. Carr?