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. There shall be five inspectors of consulates, to be designated and commissioned as consuls general-at-large, who shall receive an annual salary of $5,000 each, and shall be paid their actual and necessary travelling and subsistence expenses while travelling 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 con-ducted 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 gen-eral-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 1,734, 1,735 and 1,736, Revised Statutes of the United States, shall apply to Consuls Generalat-Large. 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 $1,000 a year or more. Sections 1,699 and 1,700 of the Revised Statutes of the United States were amended to read as follows: "Section 1,699. No consul general, consul or consular agent receiving a salary of more than $1,000 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 practise 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. "Section 1,700. All consular officers whose respective salaries exceed $1,000 a year shall be subject to the prohibition against transacting business, practising 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 $1,000 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." Every consular officer of the United States is also 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 1,745. Revised Statutes. All fees received by any officer in the consular service for services rendered in connection with the duties of his office, including fees for notarial services, and fees Fee System 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, and the only compensation of such officer shall be by salary 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 of $1,000 in any one year, the other half being accounted for and paid into the Treasury. 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 shell be provided by regulation. Fees for the consular certification of invoices shall be, and they hereby are, included with the fees for officia! services for which the President is authorized by Section 1,745 of the Revised Statutes to prescribe rates or tariffs; and Sections 2,851 and 1,721 of the Revised Statutes are hereby repealed, 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 juris diction of the government of the United States unless such stamp or stamps is tr are affixed and cancelled. An act approved June 23, 1906, provided that with the approval of the President of the United States the government of the Philippine Islands is authorized, whenever in its opinion such action is desirable, in order to carry out the provisions Philippine of section six of the act approved March second, nineteen hundred and Coinage. three, entitled "An act to establish a standard of value and to provide for a coinage system in the Philippine Islands," to change the weight and fineness of the silver coins authorized by said act, and may in its discretion provide a weight and fineness proportionately less for subsidiary coins than for the standard Philippine pesos, and may also in its discretion recoin any of the existing coins of the Philippine Islands at the new weight and fineness when such coins are received into the Treasury or into the gold standard fund of the Philippine Islands: Provided, That the weight and fineness of the silver pesos to be coined in accordance with the provisions of this section shall not be reduced below seven hundred parts of pure silver to three hundred of alloy. Section 8 of an act of Congress approved March 2, 1903, entitled "An act to establish a standard of value and to provide for a coinage system in the Philippine Islands, as amended by Section 10 of an act approved February 6, 1905, is further amended to read as follows: " "Section 8. That the treasurer of the Philippine Islands is hereby authorized, in his discretion, to receive at the treasury of the government of the said islands, or any of its branches deposits of the standard silver coins of one peso authorized by this act to be coined, in sums of not less than twenty pesos, Philippine currency, and to issue certificates therefor in denominations of not less than two pesos nor more than five hundred pesos, and coin so deposited shall be retained in the treasury and held for the payment of such certificates on demand, and used for no other purpose. Such certificates shall be receivable for customs, taxes, and for all public dues. in the Philippine Islands, and when so received may be reissued, and when held by any banking association in said islands may be counted as a part of its lawful re serve: Provided, That the treasurer of the Philippine Islands, with the approval of the governor-general, may substitute for any part of such silver pesos hereafter deposited, gold coin of the United States legally equivalent in value, and redeem the certificates hereafter issued in either silver pesos or such gold coin of equivalent value at the option of the Treasurer: Provided further, That the amount of gold coin held in such reserve shall not at any time exceed sixty per centum of the total amount of certificates outstanding." An act approved June 28, 1906, provided that section 5,481 of the Revised Statutes of the United States be, and the same is hereby, amended to read as follows: "Section 5,481. Every officer, clerk, agent, or employe of the United Official States, and every person representing himself to be or assuming to act Extortion. as such officer, clerk, agent, or employe, who is guilty of extortion. under color of his office, clerkship, agency, or employment, or under color of his pretended or assumed office, clerkship, agency, or employment, and every person who shall attempt any act which if performed would make him guilty of such extortion, shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment, except those officers or agents of the United States otherwise differently and specially provided for in the subsequent sections of this chapter." An act approved June 30, 1906, established a court, to be called the United States Court for China, which shall have exclusive jurisdiction in all cases and judicial proUnited States Court ceedings whereof jurisdiction may now be exercised by United States consuls and ministers by law and by virtue of treaties between the United States and China, except in so far as the said jurisdiction is for China. qualified by Section 2 of this act. The said court shall hold sessions at Shanghai, China, and shall also hold sessions at the cities of Canton, Tientsin and Hankau at stated periods, the dates of such sessions at each city to be announced in such manner as the court shall direct, and a session of the court shall be held in each of these cities at least once annually. It shall be within the power of the judge, upon due notice to the parties in litigation, to open and hold court for the hearing of a special cause at any place permitted by the treaties, and where there is a United States consulate, when, in his judgment, it shall be required by the convenience of witnesses, or by some public interest. The place of sitting of the court shall be in the United States Consulate at each of the cities, respectively. Section 2 provided that the consuls of the United States in the cities of China to which they are respectively accredited shall have the same jurisdiction as they now possess in civil cases where the sum or value of the property involved in the controversy does not exceed $500 United States money and in criminal cases where the punishment for the offence charged cannot exceed by law $100 fine or sixty days' imprisonment, or both, and shall have power to arrest, examine, and discharge accused persons or commit them to the said court. From all final judgments of the consular court either party shall have the right of appeal to the United States court for China; Provided, also, that appeal may be taken to the United States court for China from any final judgment of the consular courts of the United States in Corea so long as the rights of extraterritoriality shall obtain in favor of the United States. The said United States court for China shall have and exercise supervisory control over the discharge by consuls and vice-consuls of the duties prescribed by the laws of the United States relating to the estates of decedents in China. Within sixty days after: the death in China of any citizen. of the United States, or any citizen of any territory belonging to the United States, the consul or vice-consul whose duty it becomes to take possession of the effects of such deceased person under the laws of the United States shall file with the clerk of said court a sworn inventory of such effects, and shall as additional effects come from time to time into his possession immediately file a supplemental inventory or inventories of the same. He shall also file with the clerk of said court within said sixty days a schedule under oath of the debts of said decedent, so far as known, and a schedule or statement of all additional debts thereafter discovered. Such consul or vice-consul shall pay no claims against the estate without the written approval of the judge of said court, nor shall he make sale of any of the assets of said estate without first reporting the same to said judge and obtaining a written approval of said sale, and he shall likewise within ten days after any such sale report the fact of such sale to said court, and the amount derived therefrom. Appeals shall lie from all final judgments or decrees of said court to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals of the Ninth Judicial Circuit, and thence appeals and writs of error may be taken from the judgments or decrees of the said Circuit Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court of the United States in the same class of cases as those in which appeals and writs of error are permitted to judgments of said Court of Appeals in cases coming from district and circuit courts of the United States. Sald appeals or writs of error shall be regulated by the procedure governing appeals within the United States from the district courts to the circuit courts of appeal, and from the circuit courts of appeal to the Supreme Cour of the United States, respectively, so far as the same shall be applicable; and said courts are hereby empowered to hear and determine appeals and writs of error so taken. The jurisdiction of said United States Court, both original and on appeal, în civil and criminal matters, and also the jurisdiction of the consular courts in China, shall in all cases be exercised in conformity with said treaties and the laws of the civil and criminal matters, and also the jurisdiction of the consular courts in China, and all judgments and decisions of said consular courts, and all decisions, judgments and decrees of said United States Court, shall be enforced in accordance with sald treaties and laws. But in all such cases when such laws are deficient in the pro-. visions necessary to give jurisdiction or to furnish suitable remedies, the common law and the law as established by the decisions of the courts of the United States shall be applied by said court in its decisions and shall govern the same subject to the terms of any treaties between the United States and China. The procedure of the said court shall be in accordance, so far as practicable, with the existing procedure prescribed for consular courts in China in accordance with the Revised Statutes of the United States: Provided, however, that the judge of the said United States Court for China shall have authority from time to time to modify and supplement said rules of procedure. The provisions of Sections 4,106 and 4,107 of the Revised Statutes of the United States allowing consuls in certain cases to summon associates shall have no application to said court. There shall be a district attorney, a marshal and a clerk of said court, with authority possessed by the corresponding officers of the district courts in the United States as far as may be consistent with the conditions of the laws of the United States and said treaties. The judge of said court and the district attorney, who shall be lawyers of good standing and experience, marshal and clerk shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and shall receive as salary, respectively, the sums of $8,000 per annum for said judge, $4.000 per annum for said district attorney, $3,000 per annum for said marshal, and $3,000 per annum for said clerk. The tenure of office of the judge of said court shall be ten years, unless sooner removed by the President for cause; the tenure of office of the other officials of the court shall be at the pleasure of the President. Among the other acts and joint resolutions passed were the following: Authorizing the Secretary of War to deliver to the Southern Historical Society certain un identified battle flags; accepting the recession by the state of CaliMiscellaneous, fornía of the Yosemite Valley grant and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove, and including the same, together with fractional sections five and six, township five south, range twenty-two east, Mount Diablo meridian, California, within the metes and bounds of the Yosemite National Park, and changing the boundaries thereof; providing for the purchase of metal and the coinage of minor coins, and the distribution and redemption of said coins; for the acknowledgment of deeds and other instruments in Guam, Samoa and the Canal Zone to affect lands in the District of Columbia and other territories; to incorporate the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution; incorporating the Archæological Institute of America; providing for the manner of selecting and impanelling juries in the United States courts in the territory of New Mexico: extending the tribal existence and government of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians in the Indian Territory; to incorporate the National Educational Association of the United States; to provide means for the sale of internal revenue stamps in the island of Porto Rico; to incorporate the Great Council of the United States of the Improved Order of Red Men; to regulate enlistments and punishments in the United States Revenue Cutter Service; to provide for the final disposition of the affairs of the Five Civilized Tribes in the Indian Territory, and for other purposes; to provide for the removal of derelicts and other floating dan gers to navigation; incorporating the Lake Erie and Ohio River Ship Canal; directing the Interstate Commerce Commission to investigate and report on block signal systems and appliances for the automatic control of railway trains; to increase the efficiency of the Bureau of Insular Affairs of the War Department; to empower the Secretary of War, under certain restrictions, to authorize the construction, extension and maintenance of wharves, piers and other structures on lands underlying harbor areas and navigable streams and bodies of water in or surrounding Porto Rico and the islands adjacent thereto; to incorporate the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; forbidding the importation, exportation or carriage in interstate commerce of falsely or spuriously stamped articles of merchandise made of gold or silver or their alloys, and for other purposes; to appoint an additional judge for the Southern District of New York; further amending the trade mark laws; to amend Section 1 of the act approved March 3, 1905, providing for an additional Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Arizona, and for other purposes; to increase the efficiency of the militia and promote rifle practice; granting to the state of California 5 per centum of the net proceeds of the cash sales of public lands in said state; to protect birds and their eggs in game and bird preserves; for the division of the lands and funds of the Osage Indians in Oklahoma Territory, and for other purposes: to prohibit shanghaiing in the United States; authorizing the striking of 200 additional medals to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin; creating the Mesa Verde National Park; to amend existing laws relating to the fortification of pure sweet wines; providing for the withdrawal from public entry of lands needed for town site purposes in connection with irfigation projects under the reclamation act of June 17, 1902, and for other purposes; providing for the erection of a monu ment on Kings Mountain battle ground commemorative of the great victory gained there during the War of the American Revolution on October 7, 1780, by the American forces; for the erection of a monument to the memory of Commodore John Barry; for the erection of a monument to the memory of John Paul Jones; in regard to a monu-mental column to commemorate the battle of Princeton, and appropriating $30,000 therefor; to open for settlement 505,000 acres of land in the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache Indian reservations, in Oklahoma Territory; defining the qualifications of jurors for service in the United States District Court in Porto Rico; to prohibit allens from fishing in the waters of Alaska; for the protection and regulation of the fisheries of Alaska; to amend an act entitled "An act to revise and amend the tariff laws of the Philippine Islands, and for other purposes," approved March 3, 1905; providing for the election of a Delegate to the House of Representatives from Alaska; for the preservation of American antiquities; to provide for the entry of agricultural lands within forest reserves; providing for the subdivision of lands entered under the Reclamation act, and for other purposes; to authorize the Secretary of the Navy to loan temporarily to the Philippine government a vessel of the United States Navy for use in connection with nautical schools of the Philippine Islands; to regulate the construction of bridges over navigable waters; extending the thanks of Congress to General Horace Porter; to provide for an increased annual appropriation for agricultural experiment stations and regulating the expenditure thereof; to prevent the unlawful wearing of the badge or insignia of the Grand Army of the Republic or other soldier organizations; directing the selection of a site for the erection of a bronze statue in Wshington, D. C., in honor of the late Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; to provide for the appropriate marking of the graves of the soldiers and sailors of the Confederate army and navy who died in Northern prisons and were buried near the prisons where they died; authorizing the commencement and conduct of legal proceedings under the direction of the Attorney General. TREATIES WITH FOREIGN COUNTRIES. The Senate ratified on December 13, 1905, a supplementary extradition treaty with Great Britain; on February 28, 1906, a copyright convention with Japan; on March 4, 1906, a convention with Rumania for the reciprocal protection of trade-marks; on March 20, 1906, a treaty of extradition with San Marino; on April 26, 1906, a convention with Great Britain providing for the survey of the Alaskan-Canadian boundary; on June 22, 1906, a supplementary extradition treaty with Japan, and on June 26, 1906, a convention with Mexico providing for the equitable distribution of the waters of the Rio Grande for irrigation purposes. On May 29, 1906, a sanitary convention was ratified, signed on Oct. 14, 1905, by representatives of the United States, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. Under the provisions of the third section of the Dingley Tariff act President Roosevelt put into effect by proclamation on January 2, 1906, an agreement with Switzer land granting these special tariff rates on Swiss products: Upon argols, or crude tartar, or wine lees, crude, 5 per centum ad valorem. Upon brandies, or other spirits manufactured or distilled from grain or other materials, $1 75 per proof gallon. Upon still wines and vermouth, in casks. 35 cents per gallon; in bottles or jugs. per case of one dozen bottles or jugs, containing each not more than one quart and, more than one pint, $1.25 per case, and any excess beyond these quantities found in such bottles or jugs shall be subject to a duty of 4 cents per pint or fractional part thereof, but no separate or additional duty shall be assessed upon the bottles or jugs, Upon paintings in oil or water colors, pastels, pen and ink drawings and statuary. 15 per centum ad valorem. In return Switzerland admits all American products at the lower conventional tariff rates granted to countries having reciprocal agreements with the republic. On February 28 a similar agreement with Germany for the year from March 1, 1906, to March 1, 1907. was announced by proclamation, Germany granting American products the benefit of her conventional tariff. On August 29, 1906, a similar agreement with: Spain went into effect, Spain contracting to give the United States the treatment in her custom houses accorded to the most favored nation (Portugal excepted). APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEARS ENDING JUNE 30, 1905, 1906 AND 1907. priations $880,796,415 47113$880,183,301 32 $820,184,634 96 $781,172,375 18 $600,000,000 00 181,573, 264 00 Amount of estimated revenues for fiscal year 1907, based on actual revenues for 1906.... Amount of estimated postal revenues for fiscal year 1907. Total estimated revenues for fiscal year 1907..... $781,573,364 00 1One-half of the amounts for the District of Columbia payable by the United States, except amounts for the Water Department (estimated for 1907 at $164,166), which are payable from the revenues of the Water Department. *Includes all expenses of the Postal Service payable from postal revenues aud out of the Treasury. No amount is estimated for rivers and harbors for 1907 except the sum of $14,000,000 to meet contracts authorized by law for river and harbor improvements included in the sundry civil estimates for 1907. 4No River and Harbor act was passed for 1907. 5 In addition to this amount, the sum of $10,544,132 is appropriated in the Sundry Civil act to carry out contracts authorized by law for river and harbor improvements for 1906. This amount includes $14,000,000 to meet contracts authorized by law for river and harbor improvements for 1907. This amount includes $17,318,976.14 to carry out contracts authorized by law for river and harbor improvements and $25,456,415,08 for construction of the Isthmian Canal for 1997. This amount includes $10,544,132 to carry out contracts authorized by law for river and harbor improvements for 1906. This amount is approximated. 10This amount includes $10,250,000 under the Oklahoma and New Mexico act, and $10,321,600 for new public buildings, and is approximated. addition to this amount the sum of $25,456,415.08 is appropriated in the Sundry Civil act and $5,990,786 in the Urgent Deficiency act, making the total appropriations passed at this session for the Isthmian Canal $42,447, 201.08. 12This is the amount submitted by the Secretary of the Treasury in the annual estimates for the fiscal year 1907, the exact amount appropriated not being ascertainable until two years after the close of the fiscal year, This amount includes estimated amount of $57,000,000 to meet sinking fund obligations for 1907, and $22,000,000 estimated redemptions of national bank notes in 1907 out of deposits by banks for that purpose. 13 This sum includes approimately $31,000,000 not included in formal estimates from the departments to Congress. addition to this amount, the sum of $7,872,200 is appropriated in the Sundry Civil act to carry out contracts authorized by law for river and harbor improvements for 1905. 15This amount includes $7,872,200 to carry out contracts authorized by law for river and harbor improvements for 1905. 11 In 14 In |