In 1815 the Congress of Vienna adopted seven rules for the regulation of
diplomatic intercourse. The United States was not represented at this
historic congress—wasn’t important enough and perhaps wasn’t interested
enough; but it has chosen to conform to the rules, nevertheless. The
fact that we had nothing to do with the promulgation of these rules and
that we are the only power that has since grown into a commanding
position, gives us a diplomatic advantage, an independence agreeable to
our national ideals and geographical situation. The first of these rules
reads as follows:
“Article 1. Diplomatic agents are divided into three classes: That of
Ambassadors, legates or nuncios; that of envoys, ministers or other
persons accredited to sovereigns; that of chargés d’affaires accredited
to ministers for foreign affairs”.
Three years after the Congress of Vienna the Congress of Aix la Chapelle
adds an eighth article, which reads as follows:
“Article VIII.—It is agreed that ministers resident accredited to them”
(to sovereigns, presumably) “shall form, with respect to their
precedence, an intermediate class between ministers of the second class
and chargés d’affaires”.
Consequently the classification of our diplomatic officers is as
follows:
1. Ambassadors. We do not send or receive legates or nuncios, as there
are representatives of the Pope, and to do so would be contrary to our
national policy respecting church and state.
2. Envoys, ministers or other persons accredited to sovereigns. This
class includes that official with the ridiculously lengthy title of
envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary—usually called minister
“for short”.
3. Ministers resident, who are usually also consuls general. There are
but four of these in our service, and as there is little justification
for this grade it will probably some day be abolished.
4. Chargés d’affaires (pronounced shar-zha-daffair), who are not
accredited to sovereigns, but to the minister for foreign affairs.
It should be borne in mind that this classification has nothing whatever
to do with the transaction of business. All diplomats have essentially
the same duties to perform. It is merely a matter of precedence, which
was considered much more important at the time of the Vienna congress
than it is now. Indeed, there are good reasons for thinking that we have
outgrown these distinctions and should straightway abandon them. This
much, at least, is apparent to all—that the chief diplomatic officer at
every legation ought to be an ambassador, thus making no invidious
distinctions between countries.
[Illustration: DIPLOMACY]
As it is at present we send ambassadors to the most important countries,
envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary to those that are
next important to us, and so on. Thus there are five ambassadors; one
each at London, Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg and Mexico respectively,
thirty envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary, four
ministers resident, and one who is classed as a chargé d’affaires.
There are secretaries of legation at twenty-three different capitals,
who in the absence of their chief may become chargés d’affaires
exercising all the functions of a diplomatic officer. At fourteen
different capitals there are military or naval attachés, sometimes both,
and an interpreter at six of them.
Legation, or embassy, formerly meant the particular business, the
errand, so to speak, upon which the ambassador was sent.
These terms are now used more often to designate the officers themselves
who are sent on an embassy, and finally by the extension of the term
they also mean the official residence of those officers.
American legations as a rule have fewer members than those of other
great nations and are much less expensive. The American diplomatic
service costs only one fourth as much as the British. Whether or not the
result is desirable upon the whole you may judge for yourselves; for
while it must be said that we have as a rule been very well served
diplomatically, yet on the other hand one direct result of our economy
is that only men of wealth can afford to be ambassadors. The cost of
living, and especially of entertaining, is so high and the salary is so
inadequate that no man in ordinary circumstances can occupy a high
diplomatic position where the social requirements are burdensome.
In several cases the parsimony of the Government has been quite contrary
to its own best interests. In Central and South America, for instance,
where we ought, by all means, to be well represented, the same officer
is frequently accredited to two, or even three different countries. Now,
no country likes to have a representative of an inferior grade
accredited to it, certainly not when a mere change of title would mend
the matter, but when it comes to being bunched together with another
country or two by a powerful and wealthy neighbor it is almost
insulting, and the countries in question show a justifiable resentment.
In such countries we will find European nations well represented, and
yet we wonder at our own loss of prestige.