By that I mean not necessarily inadequate in number but inadequate in quality. The need is not so much for clerks but is for men and women of real ability, whose services could not be obtained for less than from $3,000 to $4,000 a year. Every executive officer in the department, be he Assistant Secretary or chief of division or bureau, is pressed daily with questions for decision to a degree that prevents him from giving to really important problems that intelligent and careful consideration necessary to sound decision. I do not know any place in the Government where from $50,000 to $100,000 could be spent to better advantage than for personnel in the Department of State at Washington. I am not speaking now of the Diplomatic and Consular Services, in both of which the men are underpaid, and many of them overworked. The Rogers bill if passed will go far toward remedying the condition in the foreign service but there is nothing being done by Congress to improve the conditions in the department proper and make it fully responsive to all the demands upon it. Mr. GRIFFIN. I asked you that general question in view of the fact that your testimony discloses the fact that your department runs its business at practically a profit to the Government, outside of the matters that are of a statutory nature and where the obligation rests upon the Government and not upon any particular department of the Government. The payments to Panama and these other payments that are to be paid are in no wise chargeable against your department-they are obligations of the Government itself? Mr. CARR. Just as much so, I think, as the public debt itself, the payment of the public debt. But the difference between, as I have said before, the total amount you appropriate minus thoses charge that you have just mentioned, which are really charges against the Government itself, rather than against the State Department, and the amount of our receipts is only about a little over a million dollars; the net outlay coming out of the Treasury for legitimate State Department expenses above the amount of receipts. Mr. SHREVE. Well, I think that is all, Mr. Carr, and we certainly appreciate the assistance you have given this committee. Mr. CARR. I have enjoyed appearing before you very much and I thank you very much for your courtesy. FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1924. INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY COMMISSION, UNITED STATES AND MEXICO. STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN N. GARNER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS. Mr. SHREVE. Mr. Garner, we will be pleased to hear you on the question of the boundary between Mexico and the United States. Mr. GARNER. Mr. Chairman, I have no special information that I can give the committee, and I will take but a moment of your time. I would like to impress upon the committee the importance, in my opinion, of providing sufficient funds for continuing the measurement of the waters of the Rio Grande. Mr. SHREVE. As I understand it, the States of Texas has been doing that work for some time. Mr. GARNER. Yes; the State of Texas has taken a great interest in the matter of the distribution of the waters of the Rio Grande. We have an irrigation project on the lower Rio Grande, which, I presume, involves $75,000,000 in value. The point I wish to draw to your attention is this: Will the Mexican Government accept data furnished by the State and accord to it an equal degree of importance that they would attach to data furnished by the Federal Government? So far as I am individually concerned, I do not care who measures that water, or what the result of the measurements may be, but when you go to make a treaty with Mexico, which we are trying to negotiate now, I might say that Secretary Hughes is having data collected by the Interior Department and other departments of the Government for the purpose of making to the Mexican Government the suggestion that the two countries enter into a convention, having for its purpose control, storage, and distribution of the waters of the Rio Grande-as I say, when you go to make that treaty, will it not be important to have this information? Now, you can understand that when those Commissioners come to consider the question of the terms of the treaty and the demands of the Mexican Government, and when they take into consideration the amount of water we have been using, this might be quite an important factor in the adjustment of any claims against this Government in the negotiation of such a treaty. I think I should also say that, from my experience along that border and from my experience as a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, when that committee had jurisdiction of appropriations, I thought it was not necessary to maintain a commission in order to settle little disputes coming up between the two governments, and to maintain the relations that existed between the two countries. Mr. SHREVE. There was a time, years ago, when the Federal Government did measure the waters of the Rio Grande. Mr. GARNER. Yes, sir; the. Federal Government measured the waters of the Rio Grande for 20 years, probably, or from the time that General Mills was commissioner. Mr. SHREVE. And during the interim the State of Texas measured them. Mr. GARNER. Yes; they realized the importance of making the measurements. Mr. SHREVE. So that, as a matter of fact, the records are there and are accessible to the commissioners? Mr. GARNER. Yes. Strange as it may seem, when I was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I took the position that this commission was not necessary, but Secretary Root, Secretary Knox, and Secretary Bryan convinced me, as they did everybody else, that it was necessary to have this commission. Especially did they convince me that it was cheaper to maintain a commission than it was to undertake through the channels of diplomacy the negotiations for the settlement of matters between the two Governments. Mr. Chairman, I think that is all I care to say. Mr. SHREVE. I want to ask you if this statement is correct: For a number of years this commission maintained a number of river gauging stations to keep accurate data as to the flow of the Rio Grande, but we have been compelled to discontinue this work owing to the lack of funds, and the amount submitted in the Budget will not allow for this work, which is necessary and valuable in determining the rights to water between the two countries. Mr. GARNER. That is my understanding of it. Mr. SHREVE. You agree with that statement? Mr. GARNER. That is my understanding of it. As I recall, for a while heretofore this lump-sum appropriation did not have the approval of Congress, or Congress did not express the confidence in it that it might have done. Mr. SHREVE. It is still a lump-sum appropriation? Mr. GARNER. I do not know but what that lump sum could be used, and I think it should have been used for river-flow measurements in preference to anything else. Unless you direct that it shall be used for river work, or that a certain amount of it shall be used for river work, then, undoubtedly, you must give them what they ask for. You could direct that a certain portion of it be used for that purpose. I am interested, just as any other citizen would be, in having this Government provided with sufficient data to enable it to cope with the Mexican Government. Mr. GRIFFIN. There was a peculiar condition disclosed in reference to this matter. It was stated that our Government did not appropriate enough for the maintenance of these gauges and they had to be maintained practically by the Mexican Government. Mr. GARNER. If I am correctly informed, the Mexican Government has been maintaining water gauges all along. When the Federal Government's appropriation ran out, we had some money in Texas that could be used for that purpose, and they used it for the purpose of gauging the waters of the Rio Grande. Mr. SHREVE. We gave them $25,000 for this year, and they are asking $40,000 for next year. Do you think that $40,000 will be sufficient to enable them to take care of the gauging? Mr. GARNER. I can hardly express an opinion on that, because I am not sufficiently familiar with the details of the estimate. Mr. SHREVE. The commissioners seemed to think that it would not be sufficient. |