services to vessels and otherwise.

The fees must be tabulated

by the consular officer and entered in the accounts current (Forms Nos. 112 and 116) according to the headings therein given.

Consuls-general who are also ministers to make reports of fees.-Consuls-general who are accredited as ministers resident should also forward the quarterly return of consular fees as above required; and when such officer shall have occasion to credit consular fees, it should be done in his account for salary. Passport fees received by a minister resident and consul-general should be credited in his account for contingent expenses of foreign missions.

569. Neglect to report fees. It is provided by law that any consular officer of the United States who shall willfully neglect to render true and just quarterly accounts and returns of the business of his office and of moneys received by him for the use of the United States, or who shall neglect to pay over any balance of such moneys which may be due to the United States at the expiration of any quarter before the expiration of the next succeeding quarter, shall be deemed guilty of embezzlement of the public moneys, and shall, on conviction thereof before any court of the United States having jurisdiction of like offenses, be punished by imprisonment not exceeding one year and by a fine not exceeding $2,000, and shall be forever disqualified from holding any office of trust or profit in the United States.-R. S., sec. 1734. graph 532.)

(Para

570. Aggregate of fees.-Consular officers must also, on the 30th of June in each year, make a return to the Department of State, in the form given in Form No. 105, of the aggregate of official fees received at the consulate and the consular agencies connected with it during the fiscal year ending on that day.

DRAFTS AND ACCOUNTS DURING ABSENCE OF SALARIED

PRINCIPAL OFFICERS.

571. Principal and vice consular officers, being under separate official bonds, should render separate accounts of the business of their offices for the time they may each, respectively, be in charge. In the absence of a principal salaried officer from his post, by leave or otherwise, in excess of the ten days' limit prescribed by section 1741 of the Revised Statutes, all the accounts and vouchers up to the day of his departure from, and from and after the day of his arrival again at, his post must be rendered in his own name, and the accounts of the time of the vice-consular officer who may be in charge must be rendered in his own name. The principal officer should also render a statement of account for the salary due to him while he is absent from his post. The agreement, if any exists, between the officers in regard to compensation should be furnished with the accounts; or, if the principal consular officer is to receive the full salary, a waiver of the vice-consular officer is all that is necessary. In the absence of agreement or waiver the accounts will be settled under the provisions of paragraph 506. Any compensation accruing to the consulate from the fees and services of the agencies will be subject to a like division with the salary, unless a different agreement shall be furnished. Drafts for the salary of a vice-consular officer must be in his own name, and drafts for the salary of a principal at or absent from his post must be in his own name. In case one of the officers should pay to the other his salary or compensation out of the fees in his hands, receipts must be taken for the amounts so paid and be forwarded with the accounts. Fees or other moneys which may be turned over from the one officer to the other must be receipted for and credited

and charged in their respective accounts. A vice-consular officer must accompany his accounts with the certificate as to absence (Form No. 113) in the same manner as the principal officer.

COMPENSATION FROM CONSULAR FEES RECEIVED.

572. This account appertains to those consular officers who receive their compensation from the fees they collect for their official services. They should render quarterly to the Auditor for the State and other Departments an account current, together with a certificate as to absence (Form No. 113) and the record of fees. Form No. 116 can be adapted to the purposes of the account current. In no case is authority granted these officers to draw upon the Government for compensation, or for the expense of office rent, or for clerk hire payable out of fees. These accounts being contingent upon the annual receipts from fees, they will not be adjusted at the Treasury until the close of the fiscal year, which ends June 30 of each year. But if the consular officer's term of service should be for a fractional part of the fiscal year, his account will be adjusted for the part of the year while he was in charge, and will be settled independently of the receipts. during the other portion of the fiscal year. (Paragraph 498.) A surplus of fees due to the Government in one fiscal year can not be applied to compensation or clerk hire or office rent for another fiscal year. When a principal officer is entitled to receive, besides fees, an amount for pay for services to vessels and seamen, his account will be settled quarterly. The accounts and vouchers for office rent and clerk hire to be paid from the excess of fees over the compensation must be sent to the Department of State.-71 Fed. Rep., 496. 573. Accounts during absence of feed principal officer.-Paragraph 571 is also applicable in the absence of a principal

officer who is compensated by fees, so far as the rendition of separate accounts and the furnishing of the certificate relating to absence are concerned. The law (R. S., sec. 1782) provides that only the excess of fees shall be held subject to the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, and therefore the Treasury Department does not assume any control in the matter of a division of the compensation between the principal officer and the vice-consular officer during the absence of the former; but yet it is necessary under his bond that the accounts of each shall be rendered and settled separately. Each of these officers will therefore render separate accounts of fees, services to vessels, and disbursements for the time he shall be in charge with all the vouchers in his own name, together with the requisite certificate relating to absence. (Form 113.) The compensation accruing during the time each shall be in charge will be credited in full in each respective settlement and each officer will be held for whatever of excess of fees may be found due the Government for the time of his service.

The same rule will also be followed in the settlement of the compensation and fees of the agencies connected with unsalaried consulates. But neither the principal consular officer nor the vice-consular officer is to be prevented from receiving compensation to which he may be legally entitled out of any surplus of fees for services performed by the other during the portion of the fiscal year he may have been in charge.

ACCOUNTS FOR PAY FOR SERVICES TO AMERICAN VESSELS AND SEAMEN.

574. Accounts by feed officers.-Consular officers who are compensated from fees collected and payment for services performed for vessels should, in addition to the record of fees (Form No. 101), render quarterly accounts to the Auditor for the State and other Departments for said services in the

by consular officers to reduce to the currency of the United States the standard money of each foreign nation in trans actions within its own jurisdiction involving such standard money.-28 Stat. L., 552. (Paragraph 528.)

When the money which is in use in a foreign country is not the standard money of the country, or if it be a currency depreciated from the standard currency, the reduction to Federal money must be made at the rate of the commercial value of said money at the time and place of the transaction. (See paragraph 541 as to the nature of the evidence required in such cases.)

SUMMARY OF RETURNS AND ACCOUNTS.

586. To the Secretary of State. The following returns and accounts are to be transmitted by consular officers to the Department of State:

List of persons to whom protection has been given in non-Christian countries (paragraph 173) ..

Report on estates of deceased citizens (paragraph 650) -