tained the required percentage and have been certified as eligible for appointment. Thirty-one per cent. of the classified positions in the service to-day are filled by men who were appointed after examination under the new regulations. Thirty-seven States and Territories are represented by these men, and, in view of the requirement of the regulation that the political affiliations of candidates be not considered, it may be proper to mention that of the consuls appointed, thirty-two were from the Northern States and thirty-one from the Southern States. [Applause.]

The results achieved by the last administration in improving the consular service have been followed during the present administration by another important step forward. About a year ago, upon the recommendation of Secretary Knox, the President issued an order applying to the diplomatic service the same principles of the civil service law and regulations that had proved so beneficial to the consular service. Mr. Knox went still further and reorganized the Department of State, adding to his staff such a number of commercial and other specialists as would enable the Department, with the aid of the foreign service, to render a larger measure of assistance to the commercial interests of the country.

To perfect and make permanent the existing machinery there is now needed a law which will write into our National statutes the essential principles of the executive regulations and definitely and for all time lay down the rule that the qualifications of candidates for appointment to the foreign service shall invariably be determined by impartial examination, regardless of their political affiliations, that original appointments shall be made only to the lower grades and that promotion and retention in the service shall be based alone upon efficiency and usefulness. [Applause.]

In his recent message to Congress, the President submitted perhaps the strongest recommendation on this subject that any President has made, and there is at present pending in Congress a bill, presented within the last few days, designed to accomplish the desired results, not only in the consular service, but in the diplomatic service as well. The

enactment of this or a similar bill is a fundamental necessity to the future usefulness and efficiency of the foreign service. With a law of this kind and with the support and cooperation of our industrial and commercial interests throughout the country, still greater improvement in the character and efficiency of the representation of this country abroad is certain.

It may be asked just how the diplomatic and consular service is being utilized to promote and safeguard our foreign trade. One method is by publishing the reports of the officers, which is done daily by the Department of Commerce and Labor in a document called "Consular and Trade Reports." You are all familiar with it. Last year diplomatic and consular officers contributed to that publication over 9,000 reports, nearly twenty-five reports a day, filled with commercial, financial and agricultural data in regard to nearly every country on the globe. Constant efforts are being made to improve the quality of these reports and to make them, as far as practicable, set forth facts in an accurate, concise and business-like manner.

Just as our military experts regard it as inexpedient to make public their plans of operation, so our commercial experts in the Department of Commerce and Labor regard it as unwise that a certain class of commercial information should be distributed broadcast through the consular reports. There has been, therefore, inaugurated a confidential service through which a special class of information supplied by our consuls is communicated directly to those of our people who are known to be in a position to make practical use of it. One hundred and nineteen confidential bulletins were issued last year, covering subjects ranging all the way from a steam roller in Canada to irrigation dams in England and battleships in the Argentine. [Applause.] A special branch of this work is the publication daily of a list of foreign opportunities for American manufacturers and exporters. There were printed last year over 1,500 items, each of which represented an opportunity for the sale of products of our factories. This feature of the work of consuls is essentially practical, since it is designed to

put the foreign purchaser into direct touch with the American producer.

With the aid of our consuls the Bureau of Manufactures was able to compile a classified collection of several hundred thousand selected names of business firms in foreign countries importing or desiring to import merchandise. The use which American business houses seeking direct connection with firms abroad have made of this compilation has been so great that the Bureau of Manufactures has been obliged to publish the collection of names. The volume is now in press and should prove invaluable to those of our people who are engaged in foreign trade.

Every business house in this country may file its trade. catalogue in our consulates abroad for the benefit of foreign purchasers who may desire to consult it, and in a number of the larger consulates commercial bureaus have been established for the purpose of displaying catalogues and other commercial data, with the object of bringing the American manufacturer in direct contact with possible purchasers.

The direct responses which consular officers make to commercial inquiries addressed to them by American business .men are an important and practical part of their work. Last year nearly 14,000 such letters were forwarded by our consuls to the Department of State. They covered nearly every phase of the subject of marketing our products abroad, and much of the information in them was abstracted and published for the benefit of others in need of similar data.

Recently the Department inaugurated a plan of occasionally bringing home consuls from districts in which especially favorable trade conditions exist and detailing them to visit such manufacturing or other sections of this country as might benefit from first-hand information. This is serviceable also in enabling the consul to study the requirements and business methods of our manufacturers, and thus return to his post better fitted for effective work in future. As an evidence of the interest which consuls take in learning more about our industries at first hand, I may say that many of them occupy their time when in this country on

leave of absence in visiting trade organizations and manufacturing establishments at their own expense.

I cannot undertake to describe to you the useful work of both diplomatic and consular officers in aiding the Secretary of State in negotiations having for their object the clearing away of administrative and other obstacles to the admission of our products to other countries and obtaining for them equal opportunity in the markets of the world, nor is it proper for me to speak of their activities in connection with the larger subjects of international discussion which may have no bearing upon our commerce of to-morrow or of next year, but which may be vital to us later.

No adequate effort has been made to ascertain the value of the business resulting from the information distributed through consular reports. Many of our consuls are too modest to report their achievements in this direction, and our manufacturers are too busy to do so. There is no doubt that thousands of dollars' worth of our products annually go abroad as the direct result of the reports or other efforts of diplomatic and consular officers, knowledge of which rarely reaches the Department. In a conversation with a manufacturer some time ago, I was told that he had sold $6,000 worth of agricultural machinery in South Africa upon information received direct from a consul; another sold 100 miles of wire fencing; a contract for $500,000 bridge was the result of another report; one consul found a market in remote Siberia for sixteen carloads of machinery, and another in Turkey for machinery valued at upwards of $100,000. Only a few days ago a letter was received from a firm in Michigan commending the work of our consuls and reporting that through information supplied by them the firm had sold twenty carloads of manufactured products and that its foreign trade had trebled within a year.

A Congressional Committee usually wants to know results in dollars and cents. I wish it were practicable so to place a valuation upon all the work of the foreign service for the past year. As it is, I can only refer you to the few instances mentioned, and others recently published, in which the Secretary of State, with the aid of the foreign service,

brought about the results measurable in terms of moneycontracts for battleships, railway equipment and materials, giving employment to our factories for many months and opportunities for investment for American capital abroadaggregating in all over $120,000,000. [Applause.] If the results mentioned represented the entire work of the foreign service during the year, I am sure you will agree that its claim to encouragement and support would have been amply justified, and that the principle would have been demonstrated that a trained and efficient diplomatic and consular service wisely administered, and supported by the active co-operation of our commercial interests, is of vital importance to the future commercial welfare of this country. [Applause.]

The TOASTMASTER.-Gentlemen, I am sure we are all deeply grateful to Mr. Carr for his interesting address and we thank him very much.

The National Board of Trade, among its other activities, was one of the first organizations in this country to take a deep interest in the improvement of our rivers and harbors, because it recognizes the fact that the improvement of those rivers and harbors in the way that such work is done in Europe, where every river is canalized or improved, and where the heavy merchandise of those countries is shipped by water at the least possible rate, should some time be the system in use in our own country, so that our heavy merchandise may be shipped in the same way. No one has taken a deeper interest in the improvement of our waterways and been more persistent in his work than our dear friend, Mr. J. Hampton Moore, member of the House of Representatives from the State of Pennsylvania, whom I now have the pleasure of presenting to you. [Applause.]

RESPONSE OF HON. J. HAMPTON MOORE.

Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, you have been listening to speeches so long that it is almost a cruelty to inflict another one upon you at this late hour, but if you were a member of Congress, as I happen to be, you would be