ARTICLE XXVII.

CONSULAR ACCOUNTS AND RETURNS.

534. General accounts.-Consuls are required to keep the following general accounts when the business of their offices renders them necessary: (1) "Contingent expenses, United States consulates;" (2) "Allowance for clerks at consulates;" (3) "Relief and protection of American seamen;" (4) Salaries, consular service;" (5) "Record of official fees;" (6) "Pay for services to American vessels and seamen;" (7) "Compensation from consular fees received;" (8) "Loss by exchange, consular service." These, with other accounts and documents hereinafter explained under their proper heads, are, some of them, called "accounts" and some styled "returns" in the statute.

535. Special accounts. In case a special account for any other purpose is opened by request of any Department, that account will be kept separate, and a separate return thereof made to the proper Department. Expenditures incurred for any other Department are not to be included in any account against the Department of State.

536. To be made quarterly.-All accounts, except the final account and the accounts for salary while awaiting instructions and while going to the post, must be rendered at the close of the calendar quarter, viz: On the 31st of March, 30th of June, 30th of September, and 31st of December. The quarters are to be designated thus: "Quarter ending March 13, 189-;" "Quarter ending June 30, 189-;" "Quarter ending September 30, 189-;" and "Quarter ending December 31, 189-." If not rendered on the day, the Department of State must be advised of the reason for the delay, and the accounts must be forwarded by the earliest possible mail.

537. Not to cover different fiscal years.-No one account should

embrace time or transactions belonging to different fiscal years of the Treasury. Treasury appropriations and adjustments are confined to the fiscal years ending June 30, and when, for instance, a transit-salary period or an expenditure for the relief of a seaman extends from one fiscal year into another, two accounts should be rendered.

538. Accounts to be sent to Department of State. The following separate accounts are to be transmitted to the Department of State: The salary account of a consul-general who is also accredited as minister resident (Form No. 125); account for contingent expenses, United States consulates (Form No. 90); account for allowance for clerks at consulates (Form No. 165); account for salaries, marshals for consular courts (Form No. 165); account for salaries, interpreters to consulates in China and Japan (Form No. 165); account for expenses of interpreters and guards in Turkish dominions (Form No. 165); account for expenses of prisons for American convicts (Form No. 165); account of fees received by marshals of consular courts and of the expenditures, to be supported by vouchers; account for expenses incurred in the arrest and transportation of persons charged with crime; account for expenses of acknowledging the services of masters and crews of foreign vessels in rescuing American seamen and citizens: and any account specially ordered by the Department of State.

539. Accounts to be sent to the Auditor.-The following separate accounts are to be sent to the Auditor for the State and other Departments: Account for relief and protection of American seamen (Form No. 94); account for salaries, consular service (Forms Nos. 106, 108, 112, 116) (the account of a consul-general who is also accredited as secretary of legation is to be sent to the Auditor for the State and other Departments); record of official fees (Forms Nos. 101 and 102); account for pay of consular officers for services to American

vessels and seamen (Form No. 167); account for compensation from consular fees received (Form No. 116); account for salaries of consular clerks (Form No. 165); account for loss and gain by exchange, consular service (Form No. 92); and any account specially ordered to be sent to the Treasury Department.

540. Preparation of accounts.-The quarterly or other accounts sent to the Department of State should be inclosed in a single dispatch. An account ordered by special instructions should be sent in a separate dispatch. A transcript of all accounts should be recorded in the proper consular record.

Dispatches forwarding quarterly accounts or transmitting advice of drafts should not be numbered. (See also paragraph 117.)

541. To be stated in currency of the United States. All accounts of consular officers must be stated in the currency of the United States; and all drafts on the Secretary of the Treasury or the Secretary of State must be drawn, not in foreign money of account or currency, but in the money of the United States. In all cases when the disbursements are actually made in foreign currency the vouchers themselves should be taken and rendered to the Treasury in the same currency in which the disbursements are made; and when the value quoted in the Secretary of the Treasury's quarterly proclamation of value of foreign coins (paragraphs 528, 585) is not used in the reduction of the payments to the currency of the United States, satisfactory evidence should accompany the accounts as to the correct valuation of such foreign currency in the coinage of the United States, or the standard money of the country in which the transaction occurred, either in the form of a certificate of a responsible banker or of the consular officer himself based on authentic quotations. (See paragraph 578.) Where a currency foreign to the standard currency of the country where the consular officer is located or a depreciated

currency of said country is involved, a certificate must be furnished showing the relative value of the foreign or depreciated currency to the standard coinage of the foreign country where the consular officer is located.

VOUCHERS.

542. Unless otherwise specially instructed, a proper and satisfactory voucher must be furnished for every disbursement by consular officers. Vouchers should be in the English language, or, if not, they should be accompanied by a careful translation. They should be full, showing exactly what the disbursement was for, and should be numbered and referred to in the corresponding account by number. Vouchers in a foreign language not accompanied by translations will be suspended by the accounting officers. In all cases they must be original. Copies of vouchers will not be audited. (As to vouchers for telegrams, see paragraph 462.)

CONTINGENT EXPENSES, UNITED STATES CONSULATES.

543. The account for contingent expenses (Form No. 90) is to be transmitted by consular officers to the Secretary of State at the end of each quarter. It must contain every item of necessary disbursement made by him during the quarter for which it is rendered which he deems properly chargeable to the Government and for which an allowance is claimed.-29 Stat. L., 38. These items are divisible into three classes:

1. Those expressly allowed by the Consular Regulations. 2. Those specially authorized in writing by the Department of State.

3. Those made under pressure of an emergency.

In every case the expenditure must be necessary in its nature, reasonable in its amount, and appropriate to the particular consulate for which it is made.

Expenditures under the second class will only be authorized

upon written statement of the consular officer, showing the necessity therefor; and where authorized, if for one or more specific items, such authorization will expire when payment therefor has been made; if for regular expenditures from time to time, it will become void at the expiration of the time fixed therein; but in no case shall any authorization above provided for be effective after the termination of the fiscal year in which it was issued.

Where expenditures are made under the third class the voucher therefor is to be accompanied by a sworn statement of the consular officer, setting forth the nature of the emergency calling for such expenditure, and forwarded to the Secretary of State with his next quarterly account.

If the fees applied as directed in paragraph 567 fail to meet this account, the consul will draw for the deficit on the Secretary of State.

544. Rent, salaried consuls.-Consuls and commercial agents in Schedule B, whose annual salaries exceed $1,000 a year, may charge for rent the sum actually paid by them, to an amount not exceeding 20 per cent of the salary named in the statute. The voucher must show that the office is devoted solely to the business of the consulate, and though a consul may occupy a part of the building in which he may have his consular offices as a residence for himself and family, only such part of the premises as are actually occupied for the use of the consular office can be paid for out of the Government's allowance for rent. Consular officers whose annual salaries do not exceed $1,000 a year are not entitled to any allowance for office rent, and no application for such an allowance will be considered. (For form of the voucher for office rent see Form No. 91.)--R. S., sec. 1706. (Paragraphs 64-67.)

545. Rent, unsalaried consuls.—Unsalaried consuls are not entitled to rent, unless the fees collected or fees collected and due for services to vessels exceed the amount which they