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importance of making proper provisions for the conduct of our foreign affairs may be briefly set forth as follows: In the first place, it is a matter of common knowledge, I assume, that we have achieved a position in the world and of importance to the world which we never anticipated, and great opportunities have been opened for the development of our commercial and industrial life.

It is something I scarcely need to explain or expand upon, because it is so patent to all of us, that these opportunities are awaiting us and that if we do not take advantage of them now we lose them, We have loaned approximately $10,000,000,000 to 11 foreign countries. Therefore, we have a financial interest in the world that we never had before. Of course, we have a monopoly to-day of the gold of the world, and we are the principal source of supply of raw materials for the industries of the world. Then we have a great merchant marine, a large part of which is Government owned. There are claims on the part of our citizens which, of course, are really claims of this Government against other nations growing out of the war, of about $1,000,000,000 that will have to be readjusted.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you include that in your estimate against Mexico?

Secretary LANSING. I think there are included about $30,000,000. The Mexican claims will be considerably enlarged when it comes to an adjustment. I do not believe this billion dollars includes all the claims, by any means. I think there are many more besides; but, of course, that requires a very considerable service abroad in handling the claims, if they can be adjusted without going through the formalities of a judicial proceeding.

The CHAIRMAN. May I interrupt you a moment? In what form is the evidence of this indebtedness?

Secretary LANSING. Of the claims?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; the claims against foreign countries-the $10,000,000,000?

Secretary LANSING. That is something that the Treasury must answer. I would not want to speak on that except in round figures. Mr. FLOOD. Mr. Secretary, you are referring to claims outside of loans?

Secretary LANSING. Yes; the billion dollars is outside of the loans. Mr. FLOOD. How much?

Secretary LANSING. A billion dollars. The loans amount to something like $10,000,000,000. Now, we have à very considerable monetary interest in Europe.

Mr. FLOOD. Mr. Secretary, would you mind stating the character of those billion-dollar claims?

Secretary LANSING. What they are?

Mr. FLOOD. Yes, sir.

Secretary LANSING. It would be very hard for me to go into the details of them. They cover submarine sinkings; they cover claims against Great Britain while we were neutral, as to seizure of vessels, and other losses of a like nature.

Mr. FLOOD. How many nations have claims of that kind against them?

Secretary LANSING. I do not think I could answer that question, but we must have them practically against nearly every nation ent

gaged in the war. I do not believe there is any nation that we have no claims against. I can give you a full statement in regard to that. Mr. FLOOD. I would like to see that myself. I do not know about the other members of the committee.

Claims of the United States against foreign Governments will amount to in the neighborhood of a billion dollars or more. Of these about $800,000,000 will lie against the Central Powers, and approximately $30,000,000 against Mexico.

It is to be understood that these amounts are derived from statements of individuals and are not the result of investigations by the Department of State.

The claims arise out of such events as the loss of life and property due to submarine warfare, the injury to or destruction of American property in territory of the enemy or allies of the enemy, or territory which has been in enemy occupation; the detention or seizure of American-owned goods by countries associated with the United States in the present war; the loss of life by or personal injury to American citizens; the damage to or destruction of property in Mexico and other neutral countries.

The number of all of these claims is approximately 3,700. Many of these have been presented to the department as formal claims against foreign Governments prepared according to regulations of the department as distinguished from claims which have been filed in less formal manner. The claims prepared include approximately 450 against Germany, 30 against Austria, and 85 against Turkey. Total, 565.

About 125 claims have been filed against Great Britain, and there are, in addition, on record some 800 cases of seizure or detention of goods by Great Britain.

The CHAIRMAN. In what way will these claims be adjusted, by a commission of some sort?

Secretary LANSING. That depends entirely upon the success of our efforts abroad. If we can avoid a commission, it is better. If we can, adjust them by direct diplomatic means. It saves very considerable time. A claims commission always drags, and as a result payments are deferred. If we can do it by direct negotiation, we save time and our people get their money just that much sooner. The CHAIRMAN. There is no doubt about that.

Secretary LANSING. So I point out to you that we have at least ten times as much interest in a monetary way in Europe as we ever had before. Since 1913 our ships engaged in foreign trade have increased 357 per cent. Our passport correspondence has increased 991 per cent, and the foreign trade has increased over 100 per cent, all of which indicates that we are going to have a very heavy burden imposed upon our diplomatic and consular officers abroad, a much heavier one than they had before. Then, of course, we still have war going on in Russia and Siberia, Turkey is in a state of ferment, and the relations between this country and Germany and Austria and Hungary have not yet been restored.

We are being constantly urged to give assistance to the various countries in Europe that are suffering, and economic assistance is required. That means renewal of trade relations. The result is that we have very heavy responsibilities imposed upon us, and we have to

discharge our legal and moral duty in safeguarding the interests of our own Government and people abroad. We have to utilize the great opportunities we have in the matter of commercial and industrial interests, and, in addition, we must furnish economic aid to these countries. That does not necessarily mean that we should give them money, but we must provide so that they can restore themselves to a more or less normal condition.

Mr. FLOOD. Give them a credit?

Secretary LANSING. Possibly a credit for the purpose of conducting their trade relations with us in a proper way. Of course, this question of exchange is a very serious one, and how soon that will be adjusted no one can tell, but I am not enough of a financier to give an opinion in the matter at all. Our political and economic interests will become more or less fused. They are very closely related, and when you come to the directing influence it is, in the last analysis, political; I mean internationally speaking it is political. Our economic policies are very closely allied to our political policies and they have to be directed more or less by the organization which has control of political matters in the world. I think I spoke to some of you gentlemen here once before about reorganization of the State Department. Mr. Porter knows about it and Mr. Flood, I know, remembers it, because he was here at the time, and some others know about it. Of course, that is right in line with any expansion that we might make in our foreign service. If we do not have our foreign service expanded, we can not do the work any more than we can do the work if we do not reorganize the Department of State on a more businesslike basis than we have to-day in order to meet the present conditions.

Mr. FLOOD. What do you think of the chances of getting the enlargement you.ask for in the State Department?

Secretary LANSING. I do not know. I thought there was no use in discussing it before the Congress reconvened. Of course, if the treaty is approved, it will impose upon us a very considerable burden on account of the number of commissions that we may have to enter upon and which will all come under the Department of State.

Mr. ACKERMAN. If it is approved in the form in which it is now, without regard to reservations or no reservations, about how much money would that require?

Secretary LANSING. I have not estimated that so far, but as I recall it there are something like 23 or 24 missions provided for in the treaty, which is quite a heavy burden in itself to handle. Then we have, I think, in the neighborhood of 20, and maybe more-international commissions that we have to conduct.

Then there is another question of great importance which ought to be considered in this relation. The activities of our Government in the foreign field, although extensive, have been conducted by several departments independently of each other, following no welldefined line of coordinated effort and without regard to any wellconceived general policy. The question of duplication of work or of effort in the foreign field is secondary to the broader considerations of unity of purpose and the force to be gained through a concentration of energy under a central control. The day has passed when this Government could undertake to conduct its foreign affairs with scat

tered forces. The complexion of the world is such that every foreign situation is fraught with the utmost delicacy and must be handled with corresponding deftness and care. The Department of State is charged with the conduct of international relations which are at once the most sensitive and the most vital of our governmental interests, being as they are not only the basis of all foreign trade and finance but inextricably interwoven with the broad issue of our national defense.

As an essential factor in the furtherance of any specific or general policy, the Department of State must be relieved of all embarrassments which might arise through the uncontrolled acts of agents abroad who may not themselves be impressed with the bearing of their work upon the relations and the interests of the department responsible therefor. In the past many representatives of other departments have made extensive investigations abroad without the knowledge of either our diplomatic or of our consular representatives, and without either consulting them or making any effort to profit of such material as they may already have had in hand. The lessons of the war have taught us the necessity of a higher order of coordination, and the first step toward that end must be in the nature of a rectification of the obvious defects in our present system through the concentration of forces, the centralization of control, and the fixing of responsibility.

The preponderance of the United States in the financial and economic domain has placed us in a position which carries with it a tremendous responsibility and thrown upon us an obligation which if not unerringly discharged might subject us to the aggressions of others. Economic and political issues have become so confounded that the old familiar criterion in commercial affairs may be said no longer to exist.

The Department of State is desirous of fostering and devoloping a broad and a worthy policy which in its application will discharge our obligations toward the foreign world with justice and equity and at the same time create a wholesome atmosphere favorable to the extension of American trade, an atmosphere free of obstructions, discriminations, and artificial barriers. It is the desire of this department to lend strength and courage to every legitimate private enterprise of American citizens abroad by protecting it in its properties and exercising that degree of vigilance over its interests which will shield it against those hazards and unstable elements so detrimental to constructive enterprise.

It is not the intention of this Government to advocate commercial aggrandizement through artificial stimulation based on discriminations and unfair advantages. American commerce and American industry are economically sound, and in seeking the conquest of foreign markets need only the assurance that their efforts will be expended in a field of fair play, the only one in which well-directed initiative may build solidly on a substantial basis of merit. In an effort to solve the economic problems arising out of the present crisis there is a disposition abroad to resort to political devices which tend to divert industrial currents from their usual channels. Our duty coincides with our interest in eradicating these artificial and especially purely political factors from the domain of international trade,

and in order that the Department of State may utilize properly the full machinery of its diplomacy to the accomplishment of the desired results it is essential that it should be given command of the foreign field with freedom to direct all efforts abroad in harmony with its general policy.

The matter of reorganization of our foreign service, both diplomatic and consular, is demanded, I believe, by the business interests of this country and by the public at large. I am quite convinced of it. Of course, the individual does not realize it unless he has a foreign customer or unless he is going to travel abroad, and then he at once realizes it. Of course, we must realize that that covers a good many thousands of our people, and yet comparatively few directly. I think it does not affect very materially all the people, because all the people are engaged now more or less in foreign trade, although it may go through other hands than the actual producers. Now, in order to enlarge our foreign service, or even to improve our service, we have certainly got to give adequate compensation to the men that engage in it. We have got to give them the feeling, and it must be justified, that they can make it a permanent career, if they go into either the Diplomatic or Consular Service, and if we do not do that we are not going to get able people in the service, and we have never needed them as much as we do to-day.

Any reorganization of the Diplomatic Service particularly-because the Consular Service is already pretty well organized along the line of permanency-any reorganization of the Diplomatic Service will be most welcome to the Department of State, because it is quite essential that there should be given a sense of permanency to the service. Of course, anything along that line will be beneficial, bearing in mind, of course, the constitutional right of the President, as to appointments, the appointing power.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Secretary, I prepared a bill last May along that very line, and Chairman Porter, at my request, referred it to the State Department for an opinion. I thought that the department would be interested in it because I knew it represented the view of a good many of the men in the department. I can not attribute the delay to the Secretary, because he was in Europe at that time, but although something like seven or eight months have intervened and although several requests have been made for a reply to that letter from the committee, the department has never given its opinion on that bill. I speak of that simply to indicate that it is a bit hard for members of the committee who are really anxious to formulate constructive legislation in aid of the department to be met by that kind of bearing in the department itself.

Secretary LANSING. I am glad you spoke of it, and I shall be very glad to take the matter under my personal consideration. I have not taken it under consideration as yet.

Mr. ROGERS. I have been approached informally several times by several men in the department and have been assured that the letter had been written and was coming the next day, and then two months later I would be assured that the letter had just been written, that there had been a little difficulty about the last letter, but now, without difficulty, we would get our response, but seven or eight months have failed to elicit an actual response.

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