To give importance to and to add to the efficiency of our diplomatic
relations with Japan and China, and to further aid in retaining the good
opinion of those peoples, and to secure to the United States its share of
the commerce destined to flow between those nations and the balance of the
commercial world, an appropriation be made to support at least four
American youths in each of those countries, to serve as a part of the
official family of our ministers there. Our representatives would not even
then be placed upon an equality with the representatives of Great Britain
and of some other powers. As now situated, our representatives in Japan and
China have to depend for interpreters and translators upon natives of those
countries, who know our language imperfectly, or procure for the occasion
the services of employees in foreign business houses or the interpreters to
other foreign ministers.
I renew the recommendation made on a previous occasion, of the transfer to
the Department of the Interior, to which they seem more appropriately to
belong, of all the powers and duties in relation to the Territories with
which the Department of State is now charged by law or by custom.
Congress from the beginning of the Government has wisely made provision for
the relief of distressed seamen in foreign countries. No similar provision,
however, has hitherto been made for the relief of citizens in distress
abroad other than seamen. It is understood to be customary with other
governments to authorize consuls to extend such relief to their citizens or
subjects in certain cases. A similar authority and an appropriation to
carry it into effect are recommended in the case of citizens of the United
States destitute or sick under such circumstances. It is well known that
such citizens resort to foreign countries in great numbers. Though most of
them are able to bear the expenses incident to locomotion, there are some
who, through accident or otherwise, become penniless, and have no friends
at home able to succor them. Persons in this situation must either perish,
cast themselves upon the charity of foreigners, or be relieved at the
private charge of our own officers, who usually, even with the most
benevolent dispositions, have nothing to spare for such purposes.
Should the authority and appropriation asked for be granted, care will be
taken so to carry the beneficence of Congress into effect that it shall not
be unnecessarily or unworthily bestowed. TREASURY.
The moneys received and covered into the Treasury during the fiscal year
ended June 30, 1872, were: