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Rh commission of 2% on the amount disbursed. Complaints by crews as to the quality and quantity of the provisions on board are investigated by the consul, who enters a statement in the log-book and reports to the Board of Trade. Money disbursed by consuls on account of the illness or injury of seamen is generally recoverable from the owner. With regard to passenger vessels, the master is bound to give the consul facilities for inspection and for communication with passengers, and to exhibit his “master’s list,” or list of passengers, so that the consul may transmit to the registrar-general, for insertion in the Marine Register Book, a report of the passengers dying and children born during the voyage. The consul may even defray the expenses of maintaining, and forwarding to their destination, passengers taken off or picked up from wrecked or injured vessels, if the master does not undertake to proceed in six weeks; these expenses becoming, in terms of the Passenger Acts 1855 and 1863, a debt due to His Majesty from the owner or charterer. Where a salvor is justified in detaining a British vessel, the master may obtain leave to depart by going with the salvor before the consul, who, after hearing evidence as to the service rendered and the proportion of ship’s value and freight claimed, fixes the amount for which the master is to give bond and security. In the case of a foreign wreck the consul is held to be the agent of the foreign owner. Much of the notarial business which is imposed on consuls, partly by statute and partly by the request of private parties, consists in taking the declarations as to registry, transfers, &c., under the Mercantile Shipping Acts. Consuls in the Ottoman empire, China, Siam and Korea have extensive judicial and executive powers.

Since the incorporation of the British consular service in the civil service there have been several proposals to “reform” the system with the view of increasing its usefulness, more particularly from the point of view of providing assistance to British trade abroad (see Reports of Special Committees of the House of Commons on the Consular Service, 1858, 1872, 1903). It has been frequently urged that British consuls in their commercial knowledge and intercourse with foreign merchants compare unfavourably, for example, with the consuls of the United States. It must be remembered, however, that there are points of striking dissimilarity between the duties of the consuls of these two countries. The American consul is necessarily brought much into touch with the trade and commerce of the country to which he is assigned through the system of consular invoices (see ); in his ordinary reports he is not confined to one stereotyped form, and when preparing special reports (a valuable feature of the United States consular service) he is liberally treated as regards any expense to which he has been put in obtaining information. He is practically free from the multifarious duties which the English consul has to discharge in connexion with the mercantile marine, nor has he to perform marriage ceremonies; and financially he is much better off, being allowed to retain as personal all fees obtained from his notarial duties. The Committee of 1903 was appointed to inquire, inter alia, whether the limits of age—25 to 50—for candidates should be altered, and whether service as a vice-consul for a certain period should be required to qualify for promotion to the rank of consul; whether means could not be adopted to give consular officers opportunities of increasing their practical knowledge of commercial matters and to bring them more into personal contact with the commercial community. The suggestions of the committee as the result of its inquiries were adopted in principle by the Foreign Office. The consular service is now grouped into three main divisions: (1) the general service; (2) Levant and Persia; and (3) China, Japan, Korea and Siam. The general consular service is graded into three divisions: first grade, consuls-general, salary £1000 with local allowances; second grade, consuls-general and consuls, salary £800 and local allowances; third grade, consuls, salary £600, with local allowances. Vice-consuls have an annual salary of £350, rising by annual increments of £15 to £450. In the general consular service appointments are sometimes made to the higher offices from the ranks, but more usually from a select list of nominees, who must pass a qualifying examination. A proportion of the vacancies are reserved for competition amongst candidates who have had actual commercial experience. Divisions 2 and 3 are recruited by open competition. There were at one time a small number of commercial agents whose business consisted in watching and reporting on the commerce, industries and products of special districts, and in answering inquiries on commercial subjects. Their duties were subsequently transferred to the consular staff, and a new class of officers, consular attachés, created. The consular attachés divide their time between special investigations abroad, and visits to manufacturing districts in the United Kingdom. The headquarters of the commercial attachés in Europe, except those at Paris and Constantinople, were transferred to London, without defined districts, in 1907 (see Report on the System of British Commercial Attachés and Agents, 1908, Cd. 3610). “Pro-consuls” are frequently appointed for the purpose of administering oaths, taking affidavits or affirmations, and performing notarial acts under the Commissioners for Oaths Acts 1889.

The position of the United States consuls is minutely described in the Regulations, Washington, 1896. Under various treaties and conventions they enjoy large privileges and jurisdiction. By the treaty of 1816 with Sweden the United States government agreed that the consuls of the two states respectively should be sole judges in disputes between captains and crews of vessels. (Up to 1906 there were eighteen treaties containing this clause.) By convention with France in 1853 they likewise agreed that the consuls of both countries should be permitted to hold real estate, and to have the “police interne des navires à commerce.” In Borneo, China, Korea, Morocco, Persia, Siam, Tripoli and Turkey an extensive jurisdiction, civil and criminal, is exercised by treaty stipulation in cases where United States subjects are interested. Exemption from liability to appear as a witness is often stipulated. The question was raised in France in 1843 by the case of the Spanish consul Soller at Aix, and in America in 1854 by the case of Dillon, the French consul at San Francisco, who, on being arrested by Judge Hoffmann for declining to give evidence in a criminal suit, pulled down his consular flag. So, also, inviolability of national archives is often stipulated. To the consuls of other nations the United States government have always accorded the privileges of arresting deserters, and of being themselves amenable only to the Federal and not to the States courts. They also recognize foreign consuls as representative suitors for absent foreigners.

The United States commercial agents are appointed by the president, and usually receive an exequatur. They form a class by themselves, and are distinct from the consular agents, who are simply deputy consuls in districts where there is no principal consul.

By a law of April 1906 the U.S. consular service was reorganized and graded, the office of consul-general being divided into seven classes, and that of consul into nine classes; and on June 27 an executive order was issued by President Roosevelt governing appointments and promotions.

See A. de Miltitz, Manuel des consuls (London and Berlin, 1837–1843); Baron Ferdinand de Cussy, Dictionnaire du diplomate et du consul (Leipzig, 1846), and Réglements consulaires des principaux états maritimes de l’Europe et de l’Amérique (ib., 1851); Tuson, British Consul’s Manual (London, 1856); De Clercq, Guide pratique des consulats (1st ed., 1858, 5th ed. by de Vallat, Paris, 1898); C. J. Tarring, British Consular Jurisdiction in the East (London, 1887); Lippmann, Die Konsularjurisdiktion im Orient (Berlin, 1898); Zorn, Die Konsulargesetzgebung des deutschen Reichs (2nd ed., Berlin, 1901); v. König, Handbuch des deutschen Konsularwesens (6th ed., Berlin, 1902); Martens, Das deutsche Konsular-und Kolonialrecht (Leipzig, 1904); Malfatti di Monte Tretto, Handbuch des österreichischungarischen Konsularwesens (2 vols., 2nd ed., Vienna, 1904). See also the Parliamentary Reports referred to in the text. For British consuls much detailed information, including, e.g., minute directions for the uniforms of the various grades, will be found in the official Foreign Office List published annually. As regards American consuls, see C. L. Jones, The Consular Service of the U. S. A. (Philadelphia, 1906); Publications of Univ. of Pennsylvania, “Series in Pol. Econ. and Public Law,” No. 18; and Fred. Van Dyne, Our Foreign Service (Rochester, N.Y., 1909).