in the position to which appointment is desired, and was admitted to examination conditionally and passed with a rating of 84.75 but can not be certified under existing rules.

The Secretary of Agriculture states that Mr. Landon has had charge of a force of about a dozen hunter-trappers, is a good executive, energetic, resourceful, very tactful in dealing with stockmen with whom he comes in contact, well qualified to handle the accounts and correspondence incident to his position, and very successful in instructing individual hunters. These qualifications together with his intimate knowledge of the country and local conditions (almost indispensable requirements for an inspector) are said to make his services very desirable, particularly in the sparsely settled regions of central and western Texas. He is the only competitor from the section of the country where he is employed.

This order is issued on the recommendation of the Secretary of Agriculture with the concurrence of the Civil Service Commission. WOODROW WILSON.

[Amending Consular Regulations.]

THE WHITE HOUSE, September 28, 1916. Paragraph 692 of the Consular Regulations of 1896 is hereby amended to read as follows:

Currency Certificates.-When the price or value of merchandise obtained by purchase, shipped pursuant to an agreement of purchase, or consigned for sale in the United States is expressed in the invoice in depreciated currency, a currency certificate (form 144) must be attached to the invoice showing the percentage of depreciation as compared with the corresponding standard coin currency and the value in such standard coin currency of the total amount of the depreciated currency stated in the invoice. (Rev. Stat., Sec. 2903; T. D. 17252.) This certificate should show, not the value of the depreciated currency in money of account of the United States, but its value in the terms of the standard coin currency in comparison with which the currency stated in the invoice is depreciated. (T. D. 11314, 17170.)

In the assessment of duty the currency of the invoice is reduced to the money of account of the United States upon the basis of the values of foreign coins at the date of shipment, as proclaimed by the Secretary of the Treasury for the first day of January, April, July, and October of each year. (Tariff of 1894, Sec. 25; T. D. 16921.) The date of the consular certification of any invoice shall, for the purposes of this section, be considered the date of exportation. (Tariff of 1894, Sec. 25.) In the absence of a currency certificate no allowance will be made for depreciated currency. (T. D. 15435.)

When an invoice is certified by a consul of a nation at the time in

amity with the United States, or by two respectable merchants, as provided by section 2844, Revised Statutes, the currency certificate required by section 2903, Revised Statutes, may be issued by the foreign consul of the two respectable merchants who certify the invoice.

For statistical purposes, currency certificates are required for all invoices of merchandise wherein the price or value is expressed in depreciated currency, without regard to the dutiable or nondutiable character of the merchandise. WOODROW WILSON.

THE WHITE HOUSE, September 28, 1916. Paragraph 172 of the Consular Regulations is amended to read as follows:

Registration of American Citizens.-Principal Consular Officers shall keep at their offices a Register of all American citizens residing in their several districts, and will therefore make it known that such a Register is kept and invite all resident Americans to cause their names to be entered therein. Except in cases of emergency no person shall be given a certificate of registration until his application for registration has been approved by the Department. The general principles which govern applications for passports also govern applications for registration. (Paragraph 151.) The forms of application for registration will be prescribed by the Secretary of State.

The Register, which will consist of sworn applications approved by the Department, should show in the case of each person registered the date of registration, the full name of the person registered, the date and place of his birth, the place of his last domicile in the United States, the date of his arrival in the foreign country where he is residing and his place of residence therein, the reasons for his foreign residence, whether or not he is married and if married the name of his wife, her place of birth and residence, if he has children, the name, date and place of birth and residence of each, and any other pertinent information which the Department of State may require. The nature of the proof accepted to establish his citizenship should also appear.

Consuls may issue, upon forms prescribed by the Department, certificates of registration good for one year, for use with the authorities of the place where the persons registered are residing. When a certificate expires a new one may be issued, the old one being surrendered and destroyed, or the original certificate may be renewed for a period of one year if it is clearly shown that the applicant has not expatriated himself. Persons who hold passports which have not expired shall not be furnished with certificates of registration, and it is strictly forbidden to furnish them to be used for traveling in the place of passports, except in cases of extraordinary emergency when the Department of State shall expressly authorize their use for this purpose.

Returns of all registrations and of all certificates of registration issued shall be made at intervals and under regulations to be prescribed by the Secretary of State.

The Secretary of State is authorized to make regulations concerning registration additional to these rules and not inconsistent with them.

No fee shall be required for registration nor for any service connected therewith, except for the issuance of a certificate of registration, for which a fee of one dollar shall be required.

The Tariff of the United States Consular Fees is hereby amended by the addition thereto of the following paragraph: Certificate of registration of an American citizen. This order shall go into effect November 15, 1916.

.$1.00

WOODROW WILSON.

BRITISH REPLY TO THE AMERICAN PROTEST AGAINST THE BLACKLIST.

The British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to Ambassador W. H. Page: FOREIGN OFFICE, London, Oct. 10, 1916.

Your Excellency-His Majesty's Government have had under consideration the note which Your Excellency was good enough to communicate to me on the 28th July last, with respect to the addition of certain firms in the United States of America to the statutory list compiled and issued in accordance with "the trading with the Enemy (extension of powers) Act 1915."

You will recall that shortly after this Act became law I had the honor, in my note of the 16th February last, in reply to your note of the 26th January, to explain the object of the Act. It is a piece of purely municipal legislation, and provides that His Majesty may by proclamation prohibit persons in the United Kingdom from trading with any persons in foreign countries who might be specified in such proclamations or in any subsequent orders. It also imposes appropriate penalties upon persons in the United Kingdom who violate the provisions of this

statute.

That is all. His Majesty's Government neither purport nor claim to impose any disabilities or penalties upon neutral individuals or upon neutral commerce. The measure is simply one which enjoins those who owe allegiance to Great Britain to cease having trade relations with persons who are found to be assisting or rendering service to the enemy.

I can scarcely believe that the United States Government intend to challenge the right of Great Britain as a sovereign State to pass legislation prohibiting all those who owe her allegiance from trading with any specified persons when such prohibition is found necessary in the public interest. The right to do so is so obvious that I feel sure that the protest which your Excellency handed to me has been founded on a misconception of the scope and intent of the measures which have been taken.

This view is strengthened by some of the remarks which are made in the note. It is, for instance, stated that these measures are "inevitably and essentially inconsistent with the rights of the citizens of all nations not involved in war"

The note then proceeds to point out that citizens of the United States are entirely within their rights in attempting to trade with any of the nations now at war. His Majesty's Government readily admit that the citizens of every neutral nation are free to trade with belligerent countries. The United States Government will, no doubt, equally readily admit that they do so subject to the right of the other belligerent to put an end to that trade by every means within his power which is recognized by international law by such measures, for instance, as the seizure of neutral goods on contraband or for breach of blockade,

etc.

The legislation, however, to which exception is taken does not belong to that class of measures. It is purely municipal. It is an exercise of the sovereign right of an independent State over its own citizens, and nothing more.

This fact has not, I feel sure, been fully realized by the Government of the United States of America, for the note maintains that the Government cannot consent to see these remedies and penalties altered and extended at will in derogation of the rights of its citizens, and says that "conspicuous among the principles which the civilized nations of the world have accepted for the safeguarding of the rights of neutrals is the just and honorable principle that neutrals may not be condemned nor their goods confiscated except upon fair adjudication and after an opportunity to be heard in prize courts or elsewhere."

As I have said above, the legislation merely prohibits persons in the United Kingdom from trading with certain specified individuals who, by reason of their nationality or of their association, are found to support the cause of the enemy and trading with whom will therefore strengthen that cause. So far as tha legislation is concerned, no rights or property of these specified individuals ar、 interfered with; neither they nor their property are condemned or confiscated; they are as free as they were before to carry on their business. The only disability they suffer is that British subjects are prohibited from giving to them the support and assistance of British credit and British property.

The steps which His Majesty's Government are taking under the above-mentioned act are not confined to the United States of America; the policy is only pursued in all neutral countries. Nay, more, with the full consent of the allied countries, are being placed on the statutory list if they are firms with whom it is necessary to prevent British subjects from trading.

These considerations may, perhaps, serve to convince the Government of the United States that the measures now being taken are not directed against neutral trade in particular; they are part of the general belligerent operations designed to weaken the enemy's resources.

I do not read your note of the 28th July as maintaining that His Majesty's Government are obliged by any rule of international law to give to those who are actively assisting the cause of their enemies, whether they be established in neutral or in enemy territory, the facilities which flow from participation in British commerce. Any such proposition would be so manifestly untenable, that there is no reason to refute it. The feelings which I venture to think have prompted the note under reply must have been that the measures which we have been obliged to take will be expanded to an extent which will result in their interference with genuine neutral commerce; perhaps, also, that they are not exclusively designed for belligerent purposes, but are rather an attempt to forward our own trade interests at the expense of neutral commerce under the cloak of belligerency; and, lastly, that they are, from a military point of view, unnecessary.

Upon these points I am able to give to the Government and people of the United States the fullest assurances. Upon the first point, it is true, as your note says, that the name of a firm may be added to the statutory list of persons with whom British persons may not trade whenever, on account of the enemy association of such firm, it seems expedient to do so. But the Government of the United States can feel confident that this system of prohibition will not be carried further than is absolutely necessary.

It has been forced upon us by the circumstances of the present war. To extend it beyond what is required in order to secure its immediate purpose-the weakening of the resources of our opponents-or to allow it to interfere with what is really the genuine neutral trade of a country with which we desire to have the closest commercial intercourse, would be contrary to British interests.

The advantage derived from a commercial transaction between a British subject and a foreigner is mutual, and for His Majesty's Government to forbid a British subject to trade with the citizen of any foreign country necessarily entails some diminution of commercial opportunity for that British subject, and therefore some loss to both him and his country.

Consequently the United States Government, even if they are willing to ignore the whole tradition and tendency of British policy towards the commerce of other nations, might be confident that self-interest alone would render His Majesty's Government anxious not to place upon the statutory list the name of any firm which carries on a genuine bona fide neutral trade. If they did so, Great Britain herself would be the loser.

As to the second point, there seem to be individuals in the United States and elsewhere whom it is almost impossible to convince that the measures we take are measures against our enemies, and not intended merely to foster our own trade at the expense of that of neutral countries. I can only reiterate, what has been

repeatedly explained before, that His Majesty's Government have no such unworthy object in view. We have, in fact, in all the steps we have taken to prevent British subjects from trading with these specified firms, been most careful to cause the least possible dislocation of neutral trade, as much in our interests as in those of the neutral.

I turn now to the question whether the circumstances of the present war are such as to justify resort on the part of His Majesty's Government to novel expedient.

As the United States Government are well aware, the Anglo-American practice has in times past been to treat domicile as the test of enemy character, in contradistinction to the continental practice which has always regarded nationality as the test. The Anglo-American rule, crystallized at the time when means of transport and communication were less developed than now, and when in consequence the actions of a person established in a distant country could have but little influence upon a struggle.

Today the position is very different. The activities of enemy subjects are ubiquitous, and under modern conditions it is easy for them wherever resident to remit money to any place where it may be required for the use of their own government or to act in other ways calculated to assist its purposes and to damage the interests of the powers with whom it is at war. No elaborate exposition of the situation is required to show that full use has been and is being made of these opportunities.

The experience of the war has proved abundantly, as the United States Government will readily admit, that many Germans in neutral countries have done all in their power to help the cause of their own country and to injure that of the allies; in fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that German houses abroad have in a large number of cases, been used as an integral part of an organization deliberately conceived and planned as an engine for the furtherance of German politics and military ambitions.

It is common knowledge that German business establishments in foreign countries have been not merely centers of German trade, but active agents for dissemination of German political and social influence and for the purpose of espionage.

In some cases they have even been used as bases of supply for German cruisers, and in other cases as organizers and paymasters of miscreants employed to destroy by foul means factories engaged in making or ships in carrying supplies required by the allies.

Such operations have been carried out in the territory even of the United States itself, and I am bound to observe what I do not think will be denied, that no adequate action has yet been taken by the Government of the United States to suppress breaches of neutrality of this particularly criminal kind, which I know they are the first to discountenance and deplore.

In the face of enemy activities of this nature it was essential for His Majesty's Government to take steps that should at least deprive interests so strongly hostile to the facilities and advantages of unrestricted trading with British subjects.

The public opinion of this country would not have tolerated the prolonging of the war by the continued liberty of British subjects to trade with and so to enrich the firms in foreign countries whose wealth and influence were alike at the service of the enemy.

Let me repeat that His Majesty's Government make no such claim to dictate to citizens of the United States, nor to those of any other neutral country as to the persons with whom they are or are not to trade. They do, however, maintain the right, which in the present crisis is also their duty toward the people of this country and to their allies, to withhold British facilities from those who conduct their trade for the benefit of our enemies.

If the value to these firms of British facilities is such as to lead them to prefer to give up their trade with our enemies rather than to run the risk of being deprived of such facilities, His Majesty's Government cannot admit that their acceptance of guarantees to that effect is either arbitrary or incompatible with international law or comity.

There is another matter with which I should like to deal.

The idea would seem to be prevalent in some quarters that the military position is now such that it is unnecessary for His Majesty's Government to take any steps which might prejudice, even to a slight extent, the commerce of neutral countries, that the end of the war is in sight, and that nothing which happens in distant neutral countries can effect the ultimate result.