INDORSEMENT OF ACCOUNTS AND RETURNS. 588. Indorsement and folding of returns and accounts. In rendering returns and accounts which, under the Regulations (paragraph 587), are to be transmitted directly to the Auditor for the State and other Departments, consular officers are instructed that each quarterly return and account should be folded into folds as nearly 34 inches wide as possible, and should be indorsed on the upper or first outside fold with consulate, name, and title of officer, the quarter for which the document is rendered, and synopsis of the contents, a space of 1 inch being left blank at the top of the fold, thus: Form No. 112. LONDON, ENGLAND. Consul-General. Quarter ending September 30, 189-. Account current for salary and The same form should be observed in rendering accounts for "contingent expenses, ""clerk hire," and other expenses which are transmitted to the Department of State and sent to the Auditor for the State and other Departments. Dispatches transmitting returns and accounts, or any letter addressed to accounting officers, should also be indorsed on the first fold with place, date, name, and title of writer, and number of inclosure, thus: LONDON, ENGLAND. October 1, 189-. E. A. MERRITT, Consul-General. Returns and accounts for the quarter ending September 30, 189-. Number of inclosures, One letter of transmission with accounts and returns is ordinarily sufficient when they are forwarded together to one address, but any explanation respecting relief of seamen, certified invoices, or matters other than that which relates to the fee and salary account, should form a separate dispatch and be properly indorsed. The titles of inclosures and the form numbers should be given at the foot of the dispatch, and how many of each form are inclosed. Communications on letter paper should be folded in three folds, and those on cap paper in four folds. Note paper should never be used. The above instructions, it must be distinctly understood, apply only to correspondence and accounts and returns to be transmitted to the Treasury Department. Dispatches covering accounts and returns for the Department of State must be prepared in accordance with instructions contained in paragraphs 117 and120. ARTICLE XXVIII. CONSULAR REPORTS. 589. Subjects of consular reports.-Consular officers are expected to prepare, from time to time, reports upon the industrial and commercial interests of their districts for publication in the monthly and special Consular Reports and the annual volume, Commercial Relations. Among the subjects which should especially engage their attention are: 1. Condition of foreign commerce and internal trade, manufactures, mechanical industries, agriculture, etc., especially (a) Statistics of exports and imports; of shipping, and of revenue and expenditure of the country; amount of public debts, national and local; rates of taxation, character of taxable basis, how taxation is levied and collected, amount of taxation per capita, etc.; character of government currency and the standard of value; actual value in exchange, and also as measured by the dollar of the United States; changes in purchasing power of the currency; banking-new systems, especially of savings banks and of banks or associations for lending money to agriculturists, mechanics, and factory operatives; public loans and other matters of finance affecting the industry or commerce of the country; commercial creditsrates and periods usually granted to foreign purchasers, and those expected from foreign shippers; trade usages and peculiarities; special demands of consumers as to kind and quality of goods or supplies already in use or capable of being introduced among them, with suggestions as to the best and most economical styles of packing to conform to local requirements of sale and transportation. (b) Improvement of old and development of new industries, including inventions or discoveries, and the results obtained from the practical application of them. (c) Introduction of inventions made in the United States or imitations of them; application of business or mechanical methods employed in the United States. (d) Importation and use of food supplies, raw materials, and manufactures from the United States, or the possibility of introducing them, and local or race requirements to make them acceptable to foreign consumers. 2. Facilities for direct and indirect communication with the United States-establishment of new ocean or international railroad lines or agencies; development of internal transportation lines-railroads, highways, and steamboat or other carriage on rivers and canals, or betterment of them; opening up of new trade routes or abandonment of old ones; changes in transportation rates, both freight and passenger, which are of general interest to commerce; bounties or subsidies to railroads and shipping. 3. Development or decline of commercial and manufacturing centers; causes of drift of agricultural population to towns and cities; diversion of trade from one local market or district to another; projects for great manufacturing or other industrial enterprises, for harbor or river improvement, for better methods of lighting, street paving, water supply, sewerage and disposal of sewage; economy of municipal taxation and expenditure; hygienic and quarantine measures; police systems, urban and rural. 4. Changes in economic condition of producing communities, urban and rural; fluctuations in rates of wages, cost of living, prices of products, raw and manufactured, especially of food supplies, wearing apparel, agricultural and domestic implements, machinery, etc.; scarcity or glut of articles of consumption of all kinds, particularly those produced in the United States; changes in hours of labor or other conditions affecting workingmen; trades unions; strikes and lockouts; systems of cooperation and profit sharing; government measures (national, municipal, or local) or private (organized) projects for insurance or care of infirm or superannuated laborers, for improved sanitation of factories and dwellings, for regulating the labor of women and children, and for combating usury in the lending of money; technical and commercial education; museums, exhibitions, merchants' unions, and similar organizations for promoting trade, and the functions assumed by the state in connection therewith. 5. All changes in tariff legislation, including new rates of export, import, or transit duties, special care being taken to state whether they discriminate in favor of or against the United States as compared with other countries. When a wholly new tariff law is enacted, it should be given in full, with an explanatory statement of increase or decrease in duties as compared with the tariff previously existing. Prompt notice of contemplated changes in tariff legislation should be sent to the Department. By tariff legislation are meant not only measures affecting export and import duties, but also those relating to customs administration, transit duties, octroi or municipal taxes upon supplies entering cities and towns, taxes imposed upon the export or import of articles from one political district of a country (such as a state, province, canton, arrondissement, etc.) to another, tonnage taxes and port dues, or other taxes upon shipping, etc. 6. Legislation or proposed legislation of interest to farmers, merchants, manufacturers, inventors, etc., such as changes in patent, trade-mark, and copyright laws; laws to prevent adulteration of food, or to prohibit importation or sale of adulterated or impure food; laws prohibitory of importation of diseased animals, impure seeds, etc.; measures discriminating for or against any particular class of products or against imports from any country; bounties granted to special lines of manufacture or agricultural production; changes in legislation concerning agricultural, commercial, or industrial |