This development has long been noted, and attempts, both legislative and administrative, have been made to find a workable solution.

A Senate resolution.-On October 3, 1919, the Senate passed a resolution calling upon the heads of the several departments and independent establishments of the Government to submit complete statements of their activities relating to the foreign commerce of the United States. These reports were compiled and printed " but no action has been taken thereon.

13

Views of Secretaries Lansing and Redfield.-Secretary of State Lansing in his letter to the Senate stated the case as follows:

"The Department of Commerce disseminates purely commercial information, whereas the Department of State rarely disseminates the political information which may have a direct bearing thereon. I hope that it may be possible to find means of treating these related subjects concurrently, by bringing them to a correct focus in the Department of State and charging that department with their appropriate utilization.

"By this suggestion I do not desire to leave the impression that the Department of State is in any wise

partment of the Interior and the Bureau of Education. I was recently telling some educational group at the Bureau of Education that few men can write such readable reports of education as these consular agents give us. Just how accurate they are I do not know; but they are straightforward and unusually readable. Some of you probably know that at the last meeting of the National Education Association a resolution was passed asking Congress to provide for educational attachés at the various legations, showing the growing desire which the educators of this country have for accurate information about education in foreign countries."

At present there is a bill pending (H. R. 5568, 68th Cong., 1st Sess.) for the creation of Agricultural Attachés; another (S. 3857) for the creation of Customs Attachés; and still another (H. R. 4517) for giving permanent character to the commercial attaché and trade commissioner service of the Department of Commerce.

13Sen. Doc. No. 190, 66th Cong., 2nd Sess.

grasping or that there is a tendency on its part to usurp the functions or absorb the work of other departments; it is seeking their aid rather than coveting their authority. The situation which I am attempting to reveal demands a substantial broadening and intensification of work and a coordination of the activities of those departments whose efforts are directed toward the extension of foreign trade; their work must be made contributory to the furtherance of general policy and shaped in deference thereto. In other words, as the Department of State must inevitably direct the foreign policy of the Government, it desires to utilize to the fullest extent the agencies of all other departments. By such means alone would it be possible to reach a maximum of effectiveness in the broad domain of our foreign relations. The old cumbersome methods, with their duplications, their, lack of common authority, and their independent operations, ought to be abandoned.

"The Department of State is charged with the conduct of international relations, of which commercial intercourse is an essential part. Lack of cohesive effort in dealing with foreign trade disintegrates the force of general policy to a like degree."

Secretary of Commerce Redfield stated in his reply to the Senate: "There can be no clear-cut commercial policy carried out by separate bodies that do not interfunction. Any industrial organization composed as is the commercial organization of the Government would fail, for the seeds of decay are planted in the very separateness of the component parts. It is not urged that these bodies should cease to be or that their functions should be altered. There are separate duties belonging

14Letter dated January 22, 1920; see Sen. Doc. No. 190, 66th Cong., 2nd Sess., p. 8.

to each, although many of those duties lie in a common field with the Department of Commerce.

99 15

Report of the Bureau of Efficiency.-On January 26, 1920, the Bureau of Efficiency rendered an extensive report on the foreign trade promotion work of the various departments, which contained specific recommendations, but these were not given effect.1

At present a subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives is understood to be studying this question in its bearing upon expenditures.

Administrative coordination attempted.-Honorable Wilbur J. Carr, writing in February, 1921, has thus described a practical administrative effort which had been lately undertaken with a view to coordinating the interdepartmental system in Washington:

"Early in 1919 the Secretary of State addressed a communication to the heads of all other executive departments, boards and commissions dealing directly or indirectly with questions of foreign trade, inviting each to designate a liaison officer to spend one or more days of each week in the office of the Foreign Trade Adviser of the Department of State. It was suggested that these

18 Letter dated October 30, 1919; see Sen. Doc. No. 190, 66th Cong., 2nd Sess., p. 43.

16The recommendations of the bureau were:

"(1) That all resident foreign trade agents of the United States Government stationed abroad shall be assigned to the Department of State.

"(2) That all departments contemplating sending trade investigators or other trade agents abroad shall first confer with the Secretary of Commerce, who should be given full power to determine the lines of all trade investigations to be conducted in foreign countries.

"(8) That all Government agents abroad whose work regularly or incidentally results in the collection of foreign trade information of any description, be required to send the data thus collected to the Department of Commerce, through the Department of State, for publication and dissemination by the Department of Commerce or for transmission to other branches of the Government service for such use as they may deem proper." -House Doc. No. 650, 66th Cong., 2nd Sess,

liaison officers would constitute a more or less informal interdepartmental board or weekly conference. This would eliminate duplication of effort, expedite the handling of matters calling for interdepartmental consultation, and harmonize the work of the various governmental agencies in Washington in economic matters. This suggestion was adopted." 1

17

Mr. Carr continued: "The Economic Liaison Committee, as it has come to be called, has met every Wednesday morning since March 26, 1919. It has proved a success. To expedite the exchange of information, the members of the committee have been made the recipients for their respective departments of the consular. and diplomatic economic reports referred to them by the Department of State. They interchange manuscript material in frequent informal conferences among themselves. They have eliminated much duplication of work through a system of monthly reports by which the de-, velopments and work in connection with foreign trade of each of the sixteen bodies represented on the committee are presented briefly before the regular weekly meetings. These reports are mimeographed and circulated among the responsible executive heads in each department. By means of subcommittees, the main committee investigates particular problems arising in our foreign relations on the economic side. The conclusions and recommendations appended to the reports of these subcommittees are always presented in alternative form, unless no differences of opinion have been discoverable. The findings of the committees are not binding on the executive heads, but plainly cannot be without a very considerable influence." 18

17 Hon. Wilbur J. Carr, in an article entitled "To Bring Our Foreign Service Up to Date," published in The Independent, Feb. 26, 1921,

18Ibid.

Since the disintegration of the office of Foreign Trade Adviser later in the year 1921, the activities of the Liaison Committee have diminished in importance and much of their original utility and significance has been lost.

As an important phase of the problem of interdepartmental cooperation is involved in the relations of the Department of State with the Department of Commerce, it seems appropriate to examine in some detail the outstanding issues that have developed in this

connection.

A table of preliminary data.—The Consular Service is composed of 510 consular officers, and 2,412 clerks and other employees, making a total foreign personnel of 2,922. It maintains 408 consular offices in 87 coun-tries (including outlying colonial possessions) which embrace all important regions of the world. The total amount expended for the Consular Service for the fiscal year 1924 was $4,995,426.38. The fees collected by the service during the same period amounted to $6,548,001.30, or $1,552,574.92 in excess of the cost of the service.

The foreign representation of the Department of Commerce is composed of 14 commercial attachés, 42. trade commissioners, 34 assistant trade commissioners and 134 clerks, and other employees, making a total foreign personnel of 225. There are 40 offices maintained in 35 countries (including outlying colonial possessions). The total cost of the foreign representation of the Department of Commerce for the fiscal year 1924 was approximately $1,000,000. No fees were collected.

Consular services for the Department of Commerce. -The Consular Service supplied the following material to the Department of Commerce for its use in 1923: