[Public—No. 83.]

An act to provide for the reorganization of the consular service of the United States.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the consular system of the United States be reorganized in the manner hereinafter provided in this act.

Sec. 2. That the consuls-general and the consuls of the United States shall hereafter be classified and graded as hereinafter specified, with the salaries of each class herein affixed thereto.

consuls-general.

  • Class one, twelve thousand dollars.—London, Paris.
  • Class two, eight thousand dollars.—Berlin, Habana, Hongkong, Hamburg, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai.
  • Class three, six thousand dollars.—Calcutta, Cape Town, Constantinople, Mexico City, Montreal, Ottawa, Vienna, Yokohama.
  • Class four, five thousand five hundred dollars.—Antwerp, Barcelona, Brussels, Canton, Frankfort, Marseilles, Melbourne, Panama, Saint Petersburg, Seoul, Tientsin.
  • Class five, four thousand five hundred dollars.—Auckland, Beirut, Buenos Ayres, Callao, Chefoo, Coburg, Dresden, Guayaquil, Halifax, Hankau, Mukden, Munich, Niuchwang, Rome, Rotterdam, Saint Gall, Singapore.
  • Class six, three thousand five hundred dollars.—Adis Ababa, Bogota, Budapest, Guatemala, Lisbon, Monterey, San Salvador, Stockholm, Tangier.
  • Class seven, three thousand dollars.—Athens, Christiania, Copenhagen.

consuls.

  • Class one, eight thousand dollars.—Liverpool.
  • Class two, six thousand dollars.—Manchester.
  • Class three, five thousand dollars.—Bremen, Dawson, Belfast, Havre, Kobe, Lourengo Marquez, Lyon, Pretoria.
  • Class four, four thousand five hundred dollars.—Amoy, Amsterdam, Birmingham, Cienfuegos, Fuchau, Glasgow, Kingston (Jamaica), Nottingham, Santiago, Southampton, Veracruz, Valparaiso.
  • Class five, four thousand dollars.—Bahia, Bombay, Bordeaux, Colon, Dublin, Dundee, Harbin, Leipzig, Nanking, Naples, Nuremberg, Para, Pernambuco, Plauen, Reichenberg, Santos, Stuttgart, Toronto, Tsingtau, Vancouver, Victoria.
  • Class six, three thousand five hundred dollars.—Apia, Barmen, Barranquilla, Basel, Berne, Bradford, Chemnitz, Chungking, Cologne, Dalny, Durban, Edinburgh, Geneva, Genoa, Georgetown, Lucerne, Mannheim, Montevideo, Nagasaki, Odessa, Palermo, Port Elizabeth, Prague, Quebec, Rimouski, San Juan del Norte, Sherbrooke, Smyrna, Three Rivers (Quebec), Vladivostok, Winnipeg, Zurich.
  • Class seven, three thousand dollars.—Aix la Chapelle, Annaberg, Barbados, Batavia, Burslem, Calais, Carlsbad, Colombo, Dunfermline, Dusseldorf, Florence, Freiburg, Ghent, Hamilton (Ontario), Hanover, Harput, Huddersfield, Iquitos, Jerusalem, Kehl, La Guaira, Leghorn, Liege, Mainz, Malaga, Managua, Nantes, Nassau, Newcastle (New South Wales), Newcastle (England), Port Antonio, Port au Prince, Sandakan, Seville, Saint John (New Brunswick), Saint Michaels, Saint Thomas (West Indies), San José, Sheffield, Swansea, Sydney (Nova Scotia), Sydney (New South Wales), Tabriz, Tampico, Tamsul, Trieste, Trinidad.
  • Class eight, two thousand five hundred dollars.—Acapulco, Aden, Algiers, Alexandretta, Bamberg, Batum, Belize, Bergen, Breslau, Brunswick, Cardiff, Chihuahua, Ciudad Juarez, Ciudad Porfirio Diaz, Collingwood, Cork, Crefeld, Curagao, Eibenstock, Gothenburg, Hamilton (Bermuda), Hull, Jerez de la Frontera, La Rochelle, Leeds, Madrid, Magdeburg, Malta, Maracaibo, Martinique, Matamoros, Mazatlan, Milan, Moscow, Nice, Nogales, Nuevo Laredo, Orillia, Plymouth, Port Hope, Port Limon, Prescott, Puerto Cortez, Rheims, Rosario, Roubaix, Saint Johns (Newfoundland), Saint Etienne, Sarnia, Sault Sainte Marie, Stettin, Tamatave, Tegucigalpa, Teneriffe, Trebizond, Valencia, Weimar, Windsor (Ontario), Yarmouth, Zanzibar, Zittau.
  • Class nine, two thousand dollars.—Aguascalientes, Antigua, Asuncion, Bagdad, Belleville, Belgrade, Bristol, Campbellton, Cape Gracias, Cape Hatien, Cartagena, Castellamare di Stabia, Catania, Ceiba, Charlottetown, Coaticook, Cornwall, Durango, Ensenada, Fort Erie, Funchal, Gaspe, Gibraltar, Glauchau, Goree-Dakar, Grenoble, Guadeloupe, Hermosillo, Hobart, Iquique, Jalapa, Jamestown, Kingston (Ontario), La Paz, Limoges, Manzanillo, Maskat, Messina, Moncton, Niagara Falls, Patras, Port Louis, Port Rowan, Port Stanley, Pro-greso, Puerto Cabello, Puerto Plata, Riga, Rouen, Saigon, Saint Christopher, Saint Hyacinthe, Saint Johns (Quebec), Saint Pierre, Saint Stephen, Saltillo, Sierra Leone, Sivas, Stavanger, Suva, Tahiti, Turin, Turks Island, Tuxpam, Utilla, Venice, Warsaw, Windsor (Nova Scotia), Woodstock.

Sec. 3. That the offices of vice-consuls-general, deputy consuls-general, vice-consuls, and deputy consuls shall be filled by appointment, as heretofore, except that whenever, in his judgment, the good of the service requires it, consuls may be designated by the President without thereby changing their classification to act for a period not to exceed one year as vice-consuls-general, deputy consuls-general, vice-consuls, and deputy consuls; and when so acting they shall not be deemed to have vacated their offices as consuls. Consular agents may be appointed, when necessary, as heretofore. The grade of commercial agent is abolished.

Sec. 4. That there shall be five inspectors of consulates, to be designated and commissioned as consular-general at large, who shall receive an annual salary of five thousand dollars each, and shall be paid their actual and necessary traveling and subsistence expenses while traveling and inspecting under instructions from the Secretary of State. They shall be appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, from the members of the consular force possessing the requisite qualifications of experience and ability. They shall make such inspections of consular offices as the Secretary of State shall direct, and shall report to him. Each consular office shall be inspected at least once in every two years. Whenever the President has reason to believe that the business of a consulate or a consulate-general is not being properly conducted and that it is necessary for the public interest, he may authorize any consul-general at large to suspend the consul or consul-general, and administer the office in his stead for a period not exceeding ninety days. In such case the consul-general at large so authorized shall have power to suspend any vice or deputy consular officer or clerk in said office during the period aforesaid. The provisions of law relating to the official bonds of consuls-general, and the provisions of sections seventeen hundred and thirty-four, seventeen hundred and thirty-five, and seventeen hundred and thirty-six, Revised Statutes of the United States, shall apply to consuls-general at large.

Sec. 5. No person who is not an American citizen shall be appointed hereafter in any consulate-general or consulate to any clerical position the salary of which is one thousand dollars a year or more.

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Sec. 6. Sections sixteen hundred and ninety-nine and seventeen hundred of the Revised Statutes of the United States are hereby amended to read as follows:

Sec.. 1699. No consul-general, consul, or consular agent receiving a salary of more than one thousand dollars a year shall, while he holds his office, be interested in or transact any business as a merchant, factor, broker, or other trader, or as a clerk or other agent for any such person to, from, or within the port, place, or limits of his jurisdiction, directly or indirectly, either in his own name or in the name or through the agency of any other person; nor shall he practice as a lawyer for compensation or be interested in the fees or compensation of any lawyer; and he shall in his official bond stipulate as a condition thereof not to violate this prohibition.

Sec. 1700. All consular officers whose respective salaries exceed one thousand dollars a year shall be subject to the prohibition against transacting business, practicing as a lawyer, or being interested in the fees or compensation of any lawyer contained in the preceding section. And the President may extend the prohibition to any consul-general, consul, or consular agent whose salary does not exceed one thousand dollars a year or who may be compensated by fees, and to any vice or deputy consular officer or consular agent, and may require such officer to give a bond not to violate the prohibition.”

Sec. 7. That every consular officer of the United States is hereby required, whenever application is made to him therefor, within the limits of his consulate, to administer to or take from any person any oath, affirmation, affidavit, or deposition, and to perform any other notarial act which any notary public is required or authorized by law to do within the United States; and for every such notarial act performed he shall charge in each instance the appropriate fee prescribed by the President under section seventeen hundred and forty-five, Revised Statutes.

Sec. 8. That all fees, official or unofficial, received by any officer in the consular service for services rendered in connection with the duties of his office or as a consular officer, including fees for notarial services, and fees for taking depositions, executing commissions or letters rogatory, settling estates, receiving or paying out moneys, caring for or disposing of property, shall be accounted for and paid into the Treasury of the United States, and the sole and only compensation of such officers shall be by salaries fixed by law; but this shall not apply to consular agents, who shall be paid by one half of the fees received in their offices, up to a maximum sum of one thousand dollars in any one year, the other half being accounted for and paid into the Treasury of the United States. And vice-consuls-general, deputy consuls-general, vice-consuls, and deputy consuls, in addition to such compensation as they may be entitled to receive as consuls or clerks, may receive such portion of the salaries of the consul-general or consuls for whom they act as shall be provided by regulation.

Sec. 9. That fees for the consular certification of invoices shall be, and they hereby are, included with the fees for official services for which the President is authorized by section seventeen hundred and forty-five of the Revised Statutes to prescribe rates or tariffs; and sections twenty-eight hundred and fifty-one and seventeen hundred and twenty-one of the Revised Statutes are hereby repealed.

Sec. 10. That every consular officer shall be provided and kept supplied with adhesive official stamps, on which shall be printed the equivalent money value of denominations and to amounts to be determined by the Department of State, and shall account quarterly to the Department of State for the use of such stamps and for such of them as shall remain in his hands.

Whenever a consular officer is required or finds it necessary to perform any consular or notarial act he shall prepare and deliver to the party or parties at whose instance such act is performed a suitable and appropriate document as prescribed in the consular regulations and affix thereto and duly cancel an adhesive stamp or stamps of the denomination or denominations equivalent to the fee prescribed for such consular or notarial act, and no such act shall be legally valid within the jurisdiction of the Government of the United States unless such stamp or stamps is or are affixed and canceled.

Sec. 11. That this act shall take effect on the thirtieth day of June, nineteen hundred and six.

Sec. 12. That all acts or parts of acts inconsistent with this act are hereby repealed.