I can reenforce that statement a bit by calling your attention to what is done in the foreign service of at least one other government. The British Diplomatic and Consular Service in the last few years since the war has been very thoroughly reorganized, as Mr. Skinner yesterday explained, and the compensation very generally increased. A consul general in the British service would have from $5,800 to $7,200 salary, as compared with our $5,500 to $8,000. I would rather leave out of consideration the two $12,000 places in the American service, because they are exceptions to the general rule, and it is hardly fair to make these two exceptional posts the basis of comparison. But in addition to the British salaries of $5,800 to $7,200, as compared with our $5,500 to $8,000, there is in addition a representation allowance of from $1,400 to $1,900 and also a rent allowance of $1,200. Mr. MOORE. What do you mean by representation allowances? Mr. CARR. I mean by representation allowances those allowances which may be applied to the excessive cost of living, to entertainment, to various personal outlays that are involved in properly representing one's government in a foreign country place. For instance, the British Government gives its consul general in New York, I think, $7,200 salary, but its representation allowance is so much that it brings the total amount of his compensation up to $24,000. Mr. BROWNE. Do they have to give an account of that fund? Mr. CARR. They do, I think, up to a certain point have to give an account of the outlay for representation, although just exactly how they manage that, I am not sure. The representation allowance is apt to be a rather complex thing as applied to the foreign service of Great Britain. They have a method of splitting up those allowances administratively to cover different things. For instance, in the British service, in the diplomatic service there is an allowance for china, glass, and plate given to any minister appointed. There is an allowance for a new consul or a new secretary, for uniform, of $500, approximately. There are allowances for motor cars for each head of a mission, and so on. I might go on here with a long list of things that they provide for, which we do not. We provide for nothing but the office expenses and salary and pay traveling expenses, just as Great Britain pays the traveling expenses of its foreign service officers. It is hardly necessary to say that the State Department does not seek authority to supply uniforms and motor cars to ambassadors and ministers. Going back again to the compensation of our consular men, at Bucharest, in Rumania, the compensation happens to be nearly the same. We pay $5,000; Great Britain pays $5,840. At Gotenborg, Sweden, we pay $4,000; the British pay $9,000. At Stockholm, we pay $8,000; they pay $6,400. In Poland, we pay $6,000; they pay $6,400. In Latin America, at Bahia, in Brazil, we pay $4,000; they pay $8,300. At Para, we pay $5,000; they pay $9,000. At Rio de Janeiro, we pay $8,000; they pay $12,000. At Buenos Aires, we pay $8,000; they pay $11,900. Mr. BROWNE. Do they exceed us generally in South America? Mr. CARR. Yes. Mr. BROWNE. Are those cases you have given typical? Mr. CARR. Those cases are typical, and that is not true of South America alone; it is true also of other places. I am just outlining the places where the difference is very great. Mr. ROGERS. May I ask whether in all the British places you are giving the figure represents salary plus representation? Mr. Carr. Plus representation allowances? Mr. ROGERS. And other allowances as well? Mr. CARR. And other allowances as well, exclusive of office allowances. do not include that as part of the compensation. We Mr. TEMPLE. The total compensation of one country as compared with the total compensation of the other. Mr. CARR. Quite so. In Italy, at Genoa, the British pay $9,200; we pay $5,500. At Milan they pay $9,200; we pay $5,500. At Naples they pay $9,200; we pay $5,000. At Palermo they pay $6,400; we pay $4,000. Those are typical salaries plus representation allowances plus personal and rental allowances. Comparative statement, British and United States foreign service. Percentage by which net cost of British service exceeds net cost of United States service, 60. Comparative statement showing salaries of ambassadors and ministers at importan' 1 Residences owned by Government and supplied in addition to salary. Comparative statement showing salaries of principal consular officers at important posts. Comparative statement, British and United States diplomatic service. Comparative statement, British and United States Consular Service. Mr. TEMPLE. Are those figures based on par of the British money, or are they based on the actual payments in money of the country to which the representatives are sent? Mr. CARR. They are based on par of British exchange, because it would be hardly feasible to calculate them in any other way, in view of the fluctuations in foreign currencies. Mr. TEMPLE. May I ask why this extra allowance is called representation allowance? Mr. CARR. Because it is the cost of representation. Mr. CARR. Representing the Government; exactly. In the consular service it is comparatively modest. In their diplomatic service it is relatively large. For instance, take the British Embassy in Washington. The total amount which the British ambassador receives by way of compensation and representation allowance is, I think, close to $100,000; it is over $90,000. Mr. TEMPLE. That would cover expenses which he would not incur as a private person but which he must incur as an official person. Mr. CARR. Quite so. He must do various things. He must do a liberal amount of entertaining, otherwise his usefulness as an ambassador is restricted. He must come in contact with our people; he must travel about the country in order to gain a correct understanding of our people and of opinion and conditions. He should not have to pay that expense personally. The travel is for the benefit of the people and the Government he serves, and can be made an important factor in promoting good relations between our people and his own people. Mr. ROGERS. May I ask again, to get the comparison straight for the record, Is it a fair comparison to make between the $90,000 to $100,000 that the British ambassador at Washington gets and the $17,500 that the American ambassador at Paris gets? Mr. CARR. In a general way it is. Washington may be a slightly more expensive place to live in. Mr. ROGERS. Is it the total compensation in each case? Mr. TEMPLE. Please make it clear in comparing the British ambassador in Paris with the American ambassador in Paris, where living conditions are just the same. Mr. CARR. Answering Mr. Rogers's question first, the salary of the American ambassador in London is $17,500. The salary of the British ambassador in Washington, I think, is something like $12,000 to $15,000, or thereabouts. The British ambassador in Washington has a home completely furnished for occupancy as ambassador. The American ambassador in London at the present moment has no home furnished, but will have very shortly, when the repairs are done on the house which Mr. Morgan gave to the Government for the residence of the ambassador. The American ambassador in London pays his own house rent, and if he gives a dinner, if he gives a Fourth of July reception, if he does anything else that costs money in representing his Government, he must pay for it out of his own pocket or out of his $17,500 salary. The British ambassador in Washington, on the other hand, has his $12,500 salary, and in addition to that he has the difference between that and approximately $97,350 provided by his Government as a lump sum for the expenses in representing his Government and doing the things necessary to make him an efficient representative. The American ambassador in Paris gets $17,500. He has no house furnished by the Government. He has no other allowance for representation expenses of any character whatsoever. He is given merely the allowance usually made for the office expenses. Mr. COLE. How about traveling expenses-anything at all? Mr. CARR. Nothing whatsoever. Mr. COLE. $17,500 is all that he gets? Mr. CARR. All that he gets. The British ambassador in Paris has a magnificent residence, purchased by the British Government many years ago, which, before the World War, was supposedly worth $1,500,000. He gets in addition to that $80,000 salary and representation allowances. Mr. TEMPLE. Do you happen to know how much the American ambassador in Paris pays out of his own pocket for rental? Mr. CARR. I do not happen to know that. Mr. TEMPLE. It has been at times as high as $20,000 out of a salary of $17,500. Mr. CARR. Yes. That, of course, depends on the ambassador, his private means, his tastes, etc. That brings us to another point which I might mention, and that is, the evil of that sort of thing. By not paying sufficient salary, by not having Government-owned residences, by not allowing an amount for expenses of representation we have had the spectacle of diplomatic appointments being given to men of great wealth who have lived magnificently and made lavish expenditures for entertainment, being followed by very eminent men with modest means, who were commented upon most unfavorably because they were not able to live in a manner comparable with that in which their predecessor had been living. That is not democratic; that is not right. There ought to be such a scale of living established as would enable an ambassador to represent this country properly but not overdo it and be unduly lavish in expenditure. Mr. ROGERS. I think it may not be altogether clear in our minds what the technical distinction is between representation allowance, which is a new phrase in our legislation, as far as I know, and post allowance, which is a fairly familiar phrase to this committee, and is also embodied in legislation. Mr. CARR. I would explain that somewhat in this manner. A representation allowance is an allowance which has its origin in the practice of foreign governments. It may cover furniture and furnishings for the official residence, and the rent of the officer's residence. It may cover entertainment. It may cover an allowance for receptions on the annual Fourth of July celebration. It may cover an allowance for expenses of official entertainment given to the officers and commanders of our fleets when they visit foreign ports. It may cover various outlays which the head of a mission or a consulate makes in properly representing his government. Moreover, it is to be accounted for in precisely the manner in which expenditures are usually accounted for, so that it is known what has been done with the money and usually the exact benefit derived from the outlay. The post allowance, on the other hand, was used by the British, by the French, by others, and by us during the war, and immediately after the war to cover that increase in expenditure arising out of the fluctuations in exchange, the sudden rise in cost of living, and that sort of thing. It was a sort of war bonus such as we had here for the classified civil-service employees and was given as additional compensation and hence was a personal bonus for the officer. Mr. ROGERS. Do representation allowances take into consideration the cost of living at a particular capital, depreciation in exchange, and such matters? Mr. CARR. It depends altogether on the attitude of Congress toward that. It is perfectly possible to cover the two purposes in one authorization, or one appropriation, or keeping the two purposes separate, whichever happens to be the will of Congress to do. Mr. ROGERS. Representation allowance is a term that is broad enough if we desire to include all that post allowance includes and more things besides? Mr. CARR. It might include more things besides. I personally think that it is of the utmost importance in proper conduct of the Diplomatic and Consular Service that there should be such an allowance. Mr. MOORE. There does not seem to be any representation allowance provided for by this bill. Mr. CARR. There is an authorization on page 7, section 13, line 12. There is no appropriation requested at this time, but there is in that section an authorization for appropriations for representation allowances in case Congress at some future time should desire to make appropriations for that purpose. We have now post allowances of some $200,000. It was thought that if for the time being the new scale of salaries should be adopted in the form contained in this bill Congress might well drop the post allowance for the time being, at least, to see if we can go on without it, and at some future time when conditions require it and when Congress is in a position to be more generous to the foreign service, feels it can afford to spend the money, it may be well to make some better provision for both diplomatic and consular officers, or, certainly for ambassadors and ministers, by appropriating under this authorization a representation allowance to help them bear the cost of properly representing the Government. Furthermore, it is thought also that Congress might, rather than appropriate large salaries or salaries that would seem, perhaps, to us and to Congress unduly large, be willing to find in the representation allowance the medium of providing adequate expenses to defray the cost of our foreign representation. That is the general thought back of proposing representation allowances. Now, the question whether you should combine post allowances with representation allowances and consider representation allowance to cover both post and representation allowances, as I have sought to define them, or whether you should provide an authorization for post allowances separately from representation allowances, I submit to the committee for its own determination. One or both should be included in any measure for the permanent improvement of the foreign service. Mr. MOORE. Is post allowance carried in the existing bill? Mr. CARR. The appropriation is carried in the existing appropriation bill, but there is no statutory authorization for it. I would submit that there is a need for statutory authorization for representation allowances and post allowances. In 1918, I think it was, there was a very sudden advance in exchange in the Far East, which automatically cut in half the purchasing power of the salaries which we pay our men out there. We had the entire Consular Service and some of the legation staff on the point of resigning from the service, because the purchasing power of their salaries had become too low to cover their living expenses. The Standard Oil, the British-American Tobacco Co., and other big companies in China immediately supplemented the salaries of their employees |