great fortunes have been developed, and the country has expanded in every way, that you have had men in the schools, in the church, in various activities where pecuniary considerations were not dominant. Of course, our colleges have had to meet the new exigency; they have had to readjust their salaries. Our universities have had to meet it. We have had, in various ways, to meet the higher expense and the increased competition under cond tions at this day. What is necessary is to give a man an assurance that he will be able, at least, to live, that he will be able to get married, that he will be able to support himself according to reasonable and modest American standards. Is it too much to lay down the maximum for the very best at $9,000, at this time? Well, if I thought I should have to argue that question, I should despair of any consideration of the department. It can not be possible that I must argue this, that for a man who has chosen this career, who year after year sees his friends at college get rich about him; a maximum of $9,000 and a minimum of $3,000, should be considered excessive. The maximum will only be, of course, for the best men of long service. It runs down to $3,000.

I

It is not a good thing for the diplomatic service to be recruited, even on a merit basis, exclusively from men of families of fortune who can afford the life on the present basis. When I say that, I want to say that I am the last man in the world to deny the fine ambition, the qualifications, the creditable work of our young men of families of fortune who have not tried to add to their pecuniary competency but have made it available for public service. do not know what we would do to-day if it was not that we can draw upon men who not only have had the advantages of culture and refinement, but who have private means and can afford to enter the service and are selected because of their ability and not because of any fortune they may have. With all credit to them, however, it is a great mistake, utterly undemocratic, for the Government to so arrange its affairs as to exclude others.

This is not an extravagant proposal. This is an effort to make a reasonable classification which will give an opportunity, first, to put men where experience shows their best fitness lies, and next to make a career attractive within limits so that those who enter the service may feel that if they are reasonable and modest that they can get along just as our boys want to get along if they are normal; that they can have a fair livelihood and a reasonable position in the world.

Mr. COCKRAN. About what proportion of these appointees would get the highest?

Secretary HUGHES. The classification is left entirely to the President. It is all classified on the President's responsibility with reference to fitness and experience in the service, proved ability, etc.

Mr. COCKRAN. There is not any fixed number?

Secretary HUGHES. No fixed number.

Mr. COCKRAN. The President can expand or contract that whenever and as ne chooses?

Secretary HUGHES. Exactly according to the needs of the service. If you will take this little volume, available to you all, the "Diplomatic and Consular Services of the United States," and look through this present classification of consuls general and consuls, vice consuls, consuls of career, etc., you will see this, if you will permit me: There are two consuls general of class 1 at $12,000 each. They can not be disturbed, but their successors would get $9,000. Mr. COCKRAN. Would that be enough for London and Paris? Secretary HUGHES. I think it is unequal as it is. I think to take a man-I will not mention names, because I am very glad that Mr. Skinner, one of the best men ever in the Consular Service, sits here, and I will not go into namesbut take a case like Paris. Suppose you take the diplomatic end of it-and we would naturally have one of our most experienced counsellors in the service in the embassy, of the highest rank next to the ambassador-he gets $4,000. Across the street is a consul general getting $12,000. We have only two places at $12,000. The next highest is $8,000. This would give an elevation of the best to $9,000. We have an unequal situation now; we have the highest salaries paid to the consuls, and there would be no serious increase in the higher ranks. So far as the consuls are concerned, it would be the lower ranks that would be helped; and in the Diplomatic Service only those would be brought forward who have special ability and experience. I do

Mr. COCKRAN. I am not at all alarmed about the size of the salaries. not think they are too large, from my point of view, but what I do think, and it is rather striking-it is not clear to me is why the reduction of these two

consulates. By reason of their size I think there is twice as much business there as at any other agency, and yet they are reduced from $12,000 to $9,000. Secretary HUGHES. I am not sure about that. How about Liverpool? That

is $8,000.

Mr. COCKRAN. I am speaking about London; you know better than I.

Secretary HUGHES. I know it is very large.

Mr. COCKRAN. What strikes me, which has not been quite explained by your address so far, is why they should be reduced.

Secretary HUGHES. The present incumbents are not reduced.

Mr. COCKRAN. I am speaking of the office.

Secretary HUGHES. The others are reduced only in the interest of the broader classification that is deemed to be just. Now, if the committee wanted to put them all up, I do not object.

Mr. COCKRAN. I mean those two offices at London and Paris, not Liverpool. The CHAIRMAN. That would be a matter for us to determine in executive session.

Secretar HUGHES. Mr. Carr calls my attention to the fact that our highest salary of a minister is $10,000, and in relation to that it was deemed just that there should not be any consul higher than a minister. That is a matter of good judgment in the arrangement. I am not a stickler for particular amounts, so long as I carry this principle fairly into application.

Mr. COCKRAN. All I want, Mr. Secretary, is to get your view as to whether there is any particular reason why these men should be reduced, whether they get too much now?

Secretary HUGHES. It is deemed to be a fair arrangement all around.

We have another provision in this bill that is important. I can not go into an analysis of it as fully as I should like to, but you will consider it very carefully with all the details before you. That is the retirement feature. We have a general retirement measure for civil-service employees. We have retirement in the Army and Navy, but, in the Diplomatic Service, all you can do when a man has served his country for a very long time is to put him out or else continue him at the expense of the country in a position which he is no longer, on account of his age and on account of his wearing out in the service of the country, perfectly fitted to hold.

Mr. COCKRAN. What section is that?

Secretary HUGHES. The retirement provision will be found on pages 8 and 9. You will notice that this is, in a general way, adapted to the standards of the retirement act of 1920, with certain modifications.

The first modification relates to age. The age is made 65, of course, subject to the number of years in the service, instead of age 70. The reason is that in the more or less routine positions under the civil-service regulation to which the act of 1920 applies, the man may be quite as useful, if not more useful, at 70 than a man would be at 65 in the Diplomatic or Consular Service. This is subject to length of service, the number of years of service involved.

The next point is that the contribution, as shown on page 10, from salaries is 5 per cent instead of 21 per cent.

Then the other main modification is as shown on page 9, in the maxima and minima. Class A, which is based on class A of the act of 1920, is put at the maximum of $4,800, and a minimum of $1,500. Class B has a maximum of $4,400, and a minimum of $1,375; class C has a maximum of $4,000, and a minimum of $1,250; and so on down to class F, which has a maximum of $2,800, and a minimum of $875. The various classes, I suppose you may have in mind, but, as we do not profess to carry with us all these statutory provisions, I may briefly refer to the fact that under the act of 1920, class A includes all employees who have served for a total of 30 years or more, and class B those who have served for a total of 27 years and less than 30 years. Class C includes those who have served for a total of 24 years and less than 27 years. Class D includes those who have served for a total of 21 years and less than 24 years, and class E those who have served for a total of 18 years and less than 21 years. Class F includes those who have served for a total of 15 years and less than 18 years.

The actual operation of the act, as I understand it, from the figures supplied me by Mr. Carr, and I need not tell you how much I value Mr. Carr's experience and services in the matter, is that there will be an initial contribution required for this purpose from the Government of about $50,000, and that according to the expectation this is all that will be required until 1943. Then the amount would gradually increase until it would reach its peak about 1958. The ad

justments to which I have referred would cause an increase in appropriations of approximately, as figured, $578,500, divided as follows: About $267,000 is in the Diplomatic Service, and about $261,500 is in the Consular Service and retirement system, initial cost of $50,000, against which there would be a saving in the post allowances leaving the estimate at $378,500.

With regard to allowances there is a provision in the law that where there are particular conditions in places, differences in exchange, a difference in economic conditions, which make the grade salary not adequate, the President can allow sums, of course, to be appropriated by Congress, for that purpose. I thank you for your attention. I have discussed the bill in a broad way and I submit it for your consideration.

The CHAIRMAN. I am in entire accord with everything you have said. In fat, I am delighted to know that the department has taken this position. Can you give us an approximate estimate of the amount this bill would increase the expenditures?

Secretary HUGHES. Just what I have said.

The CHAIRMAN. Only $378,000.

Secretary HUGHES. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Last year the Consular Service was self-sustaining, according to Mr. Carr.

Secretary HUGHES. That is on account of the passport fees.

The CHAIRMAN. That is what I am coming to. The increased passport and visé fees have made the foreign service practically self-sustaining, have they not?

Secretary HUGHES. That was true a year ago; but the income has been reduced from that source. Personally, I should like to see the passport and visé fees eliminated or reduced to a minimum, because I think they are first-class nuisances. Every once in a while I see that the Department of State is getting letters, and I see articles in the newspapers, to the effect that the Department of State is keeping the passport fees up. Of course, that is a congressional matter, and we can not waive the passport fee. It would be of great interest to business and would aid in the freedom of intercourse if these difficulties in travel that some of us were wholly unfamiliar with in the halcyon days before the war could be gotten rid of. But we do not require passports from citizens of this country. They have to have them because they can not get into other countries without them. It is in deference to the other countries. In the aid of our immigration act, we have to have visé requirements on the other side. On account of the reduction to some extent of the income from passport and visé fees, it can not be said that we are really completely self-supporting. Now, while we have got quite an amount of income, we cost quite a little. Here is the situation, if you want to know what we cost under the current year. Here is the current year.

Mr. BURTON. The fiscal year or the calendar year?

Secretary HUGHES. The current fiscal year 1922-23. We have three items in which our appropriations are grouped. Our items of expense are grouped in three items, leaving out the various expenditures called for by treaties, etc. I refer to those last items because, for example, this year we have $5,000,000 for Colombia and $250,000 for Panama, and also various other obligations. Those items come under what we call "foreign intercourse," but they do not reflect expenditures of the service as such. The expenditures of the service as such are for the Diplomatic Service, the Consular Service, and the Department of State. The appropriations for the Diplomatic Service for the current year were $2,994 597; for the Consular Service as $5,531,400; and for the Department of State, $1,185,033.

Let me pause to tell you that is what the department down here on the American side of the line costs you-$1,185.000. That makes a total of $9,711,000. Now, against that we have collected fees, and our estimate this year of fees, amounting to $6,104,000, which leaves us a net cost of about $3,600,000. I have here a comparison between that cost and that of Great Britain. Ours was $9,711,000, theirs $12,244,000, a difference of about $2,500,000. We have, of course, a much larger amount of fees. Their net cost is $8,300,000 and ours is $3,600,000. I do not think much of the fee end of it, because, as I say, that is a temporary matter.

Mr. MOORE of Virginia. Is there anyone here who can compare this plan with the plan in effect in England and France?

Secretary HUGHES. Yes. Here is Mr. Skinner, who knows everything about England, and here is Mr. Carr, who knows everything about the Consular

Service everywhere, and here is Mr. Lay, who has just left the room because he is too modest to hear my commendation of him.

Mr. MOORE of Virginia. I suppose the Department of Commerce would very cordially approve this effort to strengthen our Consular Service.

Secretary HUGHES. Yes, I think so. Let me speak a word about that. There is no difficulty between the Department of State and the Department of Commerce. We are cooperating together. We appreciate each other's aid. In what I am about to say I know there would be no objection, and there could not be upon the merits. When you come to deal with governments you must have a unified service; this is absolutely necessary. You have got to approach governments through a regular agency, and the only question is whether you will have two bridges or one. It will be fatal to divide that responsibility. Getting information, helping trade, dealing with all the activities essential to the extension of commerce, are of the utmost importance and I should be the last to minimize their importance. But when you come to dealing with governments, there must be a single, undivided control.

Mr. ROGERS. You alluded toward the end of your remarks to the matter of representation allowances. I suppose that is the new name for what we have known for some years as post allowances.

Secretary HUGHES. I suppose that we have had under two names expenses of certain sorts, such as post allowances made in various appropriations. But to answer your question, representation allowances would meet the need now covered by post allowances, as I understand it, and is a substitute.

You

Mr. ROGERS. The post allowance practice has been always looked at askance by the Members of the House, not so much by this committee as by the larger body, which perhaps has not looked so carefully into the matter. It occurs to me that you might advantageously indicate for their benefit a little more fully why you think it desirable that there should be the principle of representation allowances in legislative form. It might help the committee and the House. Secretary HUGHES. I shall be very glad to do that. It is impossible in any fixed schedule of salaries to reflect the economic condition of the posts. have differences in exchange, differences in the cost of living; you have a variety of differences in representation, which have got to be met, or you do not carry out the promise of your own bill; and there must be some way of equalizing these differences. It can only be done by appropriation. Congress has always controlled the amount that shall be allowed. But the legislative bas's should not be so expressed as to preclude the making of the appropriate allowances which will enable the mission to serve. That is what you mean; is it not? Mr. ROGERS. Yes.

Mr. FISH. If compatible with the public interest, can you make a brief statement here to the committee in regard to American-owned embassies?

Secretary HUGHES. That is not in this bill.

Mr. FISH. No, but that is something before the committee, generally speaking. It is a matter in which the committee is interested.

Secretary HUGHES. Of course, I am vitally interested in it. But I should like to speak to a point or a bill, if there is one.

The CHAIRMAN. There is no bill pending, Mr. Secretary.

created the commission.

Secretary HUGHES. You have a commission?

Mr. FISH. The Secretary is on the commission.

Secretary HUGHES. I am represented there.

The act of 1919

The CHAIRMAN. You are one of the commission. Secretary HUGHES. I am represented by Mr. Bliss. Now, Mr. Fish I am most earnestly in favor of that. Of course, unless a man goes abroad, and goes several times, and knows conditions on the other side in an intimate way, he finds it very difficult to understand the demands in that respect of the Diplomatic Service. One of the most essential factors in successful international intercourse is prestige. That does not mean an extravagant, an undemocratic outlay. But it does mean a relative position of dignity worthy of the country. You might send a very distinguished American over there, so distinguished that he might live in a hall bedroom, carry his papers in a grip to the foreign office, but, if he did, every one would commiserate his country. Every man who saw such a condition would realize that, while individually he enjoyed the prestige to which his ability and attainments entitled him, his country was sacrified and humiliated because its representative was treated in such an outrageous fashion. This is not for the man; it is for the country.

Now, then, what are you to do? You ought to have a place for our ambassadors and ministers to live. Of course, I have been talking about secretaries and consuls. But, when you come to ministers and ambassadors, you have a very different situation in most cases unless men have considerable fortunes. It is a sad thing that there are few men who are available for the higher posts, and that they can not make good unless they have incomes far in excess of any salaries which the law would afford. You can help out by at least giving our representative a home; giving him a place to live, putting him in the same position as others. Why should the American Government, standing out supreme before the world because of its resources, why must it go about its business in foreign capitals in a shame-faced and humilitating fashion, because of inferior equipment? Protect the Government from wasteful outlays. I am for that strongly, but do not hurt your Government by foolish economies.

STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT P. SKINNER, CONSUL GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES, LONDON, ENGLAND.

The CHAIRMAN. State your full name and occupation.

Mr. SKINNER. Robert P. Skinner, American consul general, London, England. Gentlemen, I did not anticipate, in coming here this morning, that I should have the privilege of following the Secretary of State, and I have not prepared any general statement on this subject, having just arrived from London yesterday evening. I have been much interested in this bill from its inception and I regard it as the most important constructive measure thus far suggested in connection with the foreign service of the United States. Mr. Hughes has already mentioned to you the obstacles to securing the talent that we require for the foreign service, chief among them being the impossibility of offering more than a very unsatisfactory salaried position. It is with great difficulty that our young men maintain abroad the position which they should, and we have seen it over and over again that men introduced into the Consular Service are picked off by the great commercial interests, to its serious detriment. It has become, therefore, of the utmost importance that we should make the career sufficiently attractive to enable men to continue in it. I myself foresee the time when the legal distinctions which now exist between the Diplomatic and Consular Service will largely disappear. They should disappear, for they belong to other times and other conditions.

From my own point of view, the time may come in London, let us say, when one roof might very advantageously cover all activities of the Government of the United States, with the ambassador at their head and with as many compartments as you choose, each one dealing with its own special branch of the work. At the present t me we have a divided authority, the ambassador representing the collective interests of the country and the consul general representing more particularly its individual or private interests. We have in London at the present time half a dozen activities of the United States Government in various parts of the city, each one separated from the others by shadowy distinctions which would tend to disappear should this bill pass, so that in time we should come to an elastic and symmetr cal organization.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you name for us these six activities in London?

Mr. SKINNER. We have the Diplomatic Service, properly speaking, which is located at 4 Grosvenor Gardens.

Mr. COCKRAN. Have we left that place in Victoria Street?

Mr. SKINNER. Yes. Shortly before the war began that office was closed. The consul general is at 18 Cavendish Square. The Treasury Department is at 4 Haymarket. Then we have the United States Shipping Board at 10 Grosvenor Gardens, and the military and naval, agricultural, and commercial attachés at 6 Grosvenor Gardens. We also have the dispatch agency at No. 6, and the embassy proper at No. 4.

The CHAIRMAN. They are all under separate roofs, are they?

Mr. SKINNER. No; under five different roofs, not counting the ambassador's place of residence.

The CHAIRMAN. I mean that we maintain four separate and distinct establishments.

Mr. SKINNER. Yes. Shortly before I left London Mr. Harvey was much interested in the conception of having all the activities under one roof. Whether that would be practicable or not remains to be seen.

The CHAIRMAN. It would certainly reduce the overhead.