would reduce rather than increase the chance of any one being charged exorbitant rates.

The arguments favoring the unification of railway interests, and of legalized and properly regulated "pooling" as a long step toward that result, are generally allowed to rest upon the abolition of the unjust discriminations resulting from competition, but this is by no means the total good that would be accomplished. Such unification would certainly result in doing away with those extravagant features of present railway methods that are now kept up because their continuance, however costly, seems the sole alternative to greater losses through the diversion of traffic to competing lines. Any agreement for the division of traffic would necessarily include the discontinuance of the costly practice of paying commissions to secure the ticketing of passengers and shipment of freight over particular lines. This practice now costs many millions annually, which accrue, not to the benefit of travellers and shippers, but to that of middlemen, or, in other cases, become the cover for rebates and unjust discriminations. With traffic divided upon a basis independent of the amounts secured by the agents of particular lines, the absurdity of maintaining separate agencies for soliciting and receiving it would be patent. Joint agencies affording the public more satisfactory service would speedily be substituted for those of individual lines, with a considerable reduction in their total number and aggregate cost. Where one of two or more lines carrying traffic between the same points operates a route that is longer, has steeper grades or for any other reason, is more expensive, attention would soon be directed to the possibility of economy through sending all traffic over the cheapest route. The extent of the saving that might be effected in this direction is incalculable. Great loss to the railways, and indirectly to their patrons, results from the impossibility under present methods of utilizing cars and locomotives to anything like their full capacity, and the consequent necessity of a much larger investment in rolling stock than would be required under better conditions. The average service actually performed during the year ending June 30, 1894, by each of the 1,205,169 freight cars which cost the railways of the United States approximately $500,000,000, was equal to carrying a full load less than 4,500 miles, or to working up to full capacity but little over twelve days. It is scarcely consonant with the business sagacity correctly attributed to railway managers to believe that under conditions that would permit it they would not speedily secure better returns from the capital invested in equipment. Nothing is more annoying to shippers than the difficulty attending efforts to ascertain through rates on long distance shipments; and this, together with the conflicting rules and regulations in regard to traffic, established by railways in different sections of the country, constitutes a serious hindrance to the profitable interchange of the surplus products of distant regions. The convenience of railway managers as well as their perception of the desirability of easily understood and definite schedules of rates and plain, unambiguous rules of shipment would result in speedy simplification of rate schedules, rules, and classifications, and in a progressive movement toward ultimate absolute uniformity over the entire country, if the unreasonable jealousies and unnatural rivalries, that are the causes of the present conflict, were removed.

The foregoing are the principal advantages which will accrue to the public as a result of legislation removing the ban from agreements for the apportionment of traffic or earnings among competing lines. This change

has been recommended by a resolution passed by an overwhelming majority at the Sixth Annual Convention of State Railway Commissioners, by the unanimous vote of a conference of representatives of the boards of trade and other commercial and mercantile organizations of our principal cities, by individual members of the Interstate Commerce Commission, by the author of the anti-pooling section of the present law; and a bill embodying it which passed the House of Representatives during the last session of the Fiftythird Congress was only defeated in the Senate by the obstructive tactics o a numerically insignificant minority. There is no proposition for legislation likely to come before the Fifty-fourth Congress which contains a greater element of justice, is more strongly endorsed by competent and experienced men, or is capable of being more far-reaching and more effective in its beneficial results.

H. T. NEWCOMB.

AMERICAN DIPLOMATS IN EUROPE.

AMERICANS who travel in Europe and mingle to any extent with the diplomatic society of foreign countries are invariably mortified at the parsi. monious treatment American diplomats receive from the government of the United States. Underpaid in comparison with the representatives of other first-class powers, and provided with few, and in some cases no, secretaries, they are sent abroad to spend the first months of their missions in househunting and furnishing. They are, with the exception I believe of the Con. sul at Tangier, who is scarcely a diplomat, unprovided with official residences, and, unless they be millionaires, they find themselves without sufficient means to maintain the national dignity. Europeans, unlike ourselves, lay much stress upon the outward appearance of rank and power, and it is impossible for them to understand the shabby manner in which our diplomats are compelled to live. While they do not expect gold lace and cocked hats, for they have learned that simplicity is the rule of the Republic, they cannot comprehend the penurious policy of a great government which leaves its representatives homeless and houseless in foreign lands.

Since the results of the civil war have demonstrated to the world the power of the Federal government of the United States to maintain itself against the gravest internal danger which could have possibly threatened it, its importance in international politics has been steadily increasing. The American diplomat not only has to deal with the questions which the application of the Monroe doctrine presents in every European country having colonies in the New World, but he has also to bear his part in the discussion of those wider questions which affect the peace of the world as a whole. With a nation behind him which could in an emergency put in the field an army nearly as great as that of France and Germany combined, and possessed of a material wealth which would enable it to maintain, with no great effort, a navy as large as that of England, the American diplomat is an important personage in every European capital, despite the severely plain, not to say shabby, surroundings with which he is invested. Unfortunately, such surroundings deprive him of the external dignity which should support the envoy of a great nation, and render him conspicuous in a way necessarily painful to his national pride. It is impossible for his diplomatic colleagues to understand why he, the representative of a nation possessed of so much wealth, is not housed and maintained as they

are; why he is not able to return in a proper manner the social civilities of which he is necessarily the recipient. And it is equally hard for the American travellers who swarm over Europe, full of pride in the great republic beyond the sea, to understand why their ambassadors and ministers should be forced to take a place in the ranks of the "shabby genteel." There is a general and indefinite understanding in the United States that there is something seriously lacking in this respect in our diplomatic service, and the erroneous impression has prevailed that the whole difficulty can be removed simply by increasing the salaries of our diplomats abroad. Fort unately the President has not fallen into that error. In his last annual message he has taken up the subject, and with his usual practical insight he has pointed out the real remedy in the following terms:

"I am thoroughly convinced that in addition to their salaries our ambassadors and ministers at foreign courts should be provided by the government with official residences. The salaries of these officers are comparatively small, and in most cases insufficient to pay, with their necessary expense, the cost of maintaining household establishments in keeping with their important and delicate functions. The usefulness of a nation's diplomatic representative depends much upon the appropriateness of his surroundings, and a country like ours, while avoiding unneces sary glitter and show, should be certain that it does not suffer in its relations with foreign nations through parsimony and shabbiness in its diplomatic outfit. These considerations and the other advantages of having fixed and somewhat permanent locations for our ambassadors would abundantly justify the moderate expenditure necessary to carry out this suggestion.”

After considerable observation in nearly all of the European capitals, the writer will attempt to show that only through the adoption of the President's suggestion can any real improvement be made in a condition of things which not only impairs the practical efficiency of our diplomatic service, but also seriously compromises the dignity of the country.

No true American can for a moment desire that his representative abroad should depart either in his dress or in his manner of living from the traditional simplicity which has ever characterized our national life. At the same time he should wish to have his representative surrounded with the comfort and respectability which his station demands. No regret need ever be wasted over the fact that the American diplomat everywhere appears in the simple garb of an American gentleman. In the blaze of gold lace which flashes from the ambassadors down to the servants who upon state occasions wait behind his chair, the American representative stands out so distinct, so unique, in his simplicity that he really appears to be the only person who has a uniform at all.

What the American diplomat really requires is not a uniform of ruffies and gold lace, but a decent and appropriate official residence-such as is provided for all other diplomats by every important government in the world except his own-in which he can maintain the dignity of his office according to European ideas. Those ideas are based upon the usage long established in all of the important capitals where the representatives of foreign nations are domiciled in official residences provided by their governments and furnished in an appropriate manner, and in which the incoming diplomat succeeds his predecessor without disorder or confusion. There is thus no break in the continuity of the social life of the embassy or legation; it usually remains in the same spot and moves on according to the rules of well-established routine.

As a conspicuous and painful exception to this general rule, the government of the United States sends its representatives abroad without making any provision whatever for official residences. When an outgoing diplomat

retires he either vacates a few rooms in some hotel or breaks up a private establishment which he has set up on his own account. Then his successor sets up another private residence in some new and unfamiliar place when the awkward period of house-hunting is over. If the new comer is a poor man, as he is apt to be, dependent upon his salary alone, he cannot afford to lease and furnish an appropriate establishment of the kind occupied by his equals. He must content himself generally with such a one as is occupied by the representatives of the South American republics. Then, if he be a shrewd mau and thrifty manager, he may be able to hold his own with the representatives of Brazil and the Argentine, but he can hardly hope to vie with the Minister from Mexico. If he happens to be a rich and ostentatious per. son, he may, out of his private fortune, lease an expensive hotel, gorgeously furnished, and live at his own expense in a style which stands in ghastly contrast with that of his impecunious predecessor. In either event, the European sense of propriety is equally offended, by what it considers an eccentric, not to say vulgar, proceeding. It is almost as impossible for a European to understand how a man can be a real diplomat and the representative of a great nation without a permanent official residence, as it is for him to understand how a man can be a professional fisherman without a boat of his own. In the face of this deep-rooted and natural impression, it will never be possible for American diplomats in Europe to assume the position which rightfully belongs to them until our government resolves to accept the general rule and to provide them with appropriate and permanent homes.

The foreign governments which furnish official domiciles to their diplomatic representatives do so either by purchasing outright handsome residences in eligible situations, or they lease for terms of years appropriate houses, or parts of houses, which are furnished at the public expense in a proper manner. The first method, which is employed only by the great governments in the larger capitals, is expensive and ostentatious and entirely unsuited to our ideas and necessities. The government of the United States need do no more than lease houses, or parts of houses, and furnish them with the good taste which should characterize the home of an American gentleman. Landlords are anxious to find governments as tenants, and it is easy to have good houses specially adapted to the wants of embassies and legations by the promise of a continuing lease. With such modest establishments furnished to our diplomats free of expense, they could manage to maintain themselves respectably, without any increase in the very moderate salaries which they now receive.

It may be stated as a general rule that the representatives of the great - nations in the European capitals receive more than twice the sums paid to our own as salaries, and in addition thereto splendid embassies or legations, thoroughly equipped and furnished at the expense of their governments. The following comparative table will more than bear out that assertion:

If the government of the United States should resolve to remedy the present unhappy condition of things by furnishing to its diplomats in Europe appropriate residences, the expense which the undertaking would involve will, upon investigation, be found to be so small as scarcely to be noticeable in the great ledger of the republic. The following computation has been made after careful inquiry, and may be accepted as reliable: Estimated annual expenditure for rent:

Of all the diplomats in the world the American stands perhaps most in need of a helping hand at the outset of his career, certainly so far as external forms are concerned, for the reason that with us diplomacy is not a career. As a rule the American diplomat can at the beginning speak neither French nor the language of the country to which he is accredited. Upon these grave drawbacks is superimposed the task of finding and furnishing a house-a very difficult and expensive undertaking-at the very moment when he should be assisted, as all other diplomats are, by an establishment in good working order. If he were thus assisted his natural versatility and tact would enable him quickly to overcome the awkward novitiate through which he is now so often compelled to pass.

A great advance would undoubtedly be made if American diplomats could, like their colleagues, live in permanent embassies and legations in a state of continuous and uniform respectability which would impose itself upon the rich and the poor alike. Certainly it cannot be contended that a mere increase of salary would produce the same good results. All the evils which arise out of the want of permanent residences would still remain, with all the inequalities in the general manner of life which would result from a natural disposition upon the part of some to spend too little in order to save, and upon the part of others to spend too much in mere display. Only by providing official places of residence in which each diplomat in turn must live can the government be sure that the whole of what it appropriates will invariably go in the right direction. With an official residence to maintain, not a dollar could be saved from present allowances; and yet, with such an aid, our diplomats could live quietly in a style suited to their station, without an increase of salary.

It is un-American to create posts which only the rich can fill; it is unpatriotic for Congress to refuse official residences to our representatives abroad, and compel them to assume an attitude of apology for the great nation they represent.

H. C. CHATFIELD-TAYLOR.