service, and in order that the action of the Department may be understood by the officers concerned, all secretaryships in the diplomatic service shall be graded according to the importance, volume, difficulty, or other aspects of the work done by each mission in proportion to the number of men allotted to it, and this classification shall be made known to the members of the service.

A person separated from a secretaryship in the diplomatic service without delinquency or misconduct at his own request in writing may, within a period of one year from the date of such separation, be reinstated in the grade from which he was separated, provided he shall have been originally appointed after the prescribed examination for that grade. In the event, however, that such separation shall be for the purpose of undertaking other work under the Department of State, the limitation of one year for eligibility for reinstatement shall not hold. This rule shall be applicable as regards reinstatements to the consular service and also to the Department of State when transfer shall have been to another branch of the foreign service.

The Assistant Secretary of State, the Solicitor for the Department of State, the Chief of the Diplomatic Bureau, and the Chief of the Bureau of Appointments, and the Chief Examiner of the Civil Service Commission or some person whom the Commission shall designate, or such persons as may be designated to serve in their stead, are hereby constituted a Board whose duty it shall be to determine the qualifications of persons designated by the President for examination to determine their fitness for possible appointment as secretaries of embassy or legation.

The examination herein provided for shall be held in Washington at such times as the needs of the service require. Candidates will be given reasonable notice to attend, and no person shall be designated to take the examination within thirty days of the time set therefor.

The examinations shall be both oral and in writing and shall include the following subjects: - international law, diplomatic usage, and a knowledge of at least one modern language other than English, to wit. French, Spanish, or German; also the natural, industrial and commercia! resources and the commerce of the United States, especially with reference to the possibilities of increasing and extending the trade of the United States with foreign countries; American history, government and institutions; and the modern history since 1850 of Europe, Latin America and the Far East. The object of the oral examination shall also be to determine the candidate's alertness, general contemporary information, and natural fitness for the service, including mental, moral,

and physical qualifications, character, address, and general education and good command of English. In this part of the examination the applications previously filed will be given due weight by the Board of Examiners. In the determination of the final rating, the written and oral ratings shall be of equal weight. A physical examination shall also be included as supplemental.

Examination papers shall be rated on a scale of 100, and no person with a general rating of less than 80 shall be certified as eligible.

No person shall be certified as eligible who is under twenty-one or over fifty years of age, or who is not a citizen of the United States, or who is not of good character and habits and physically, mentally, and temperamentally qualified for the proper performance of diplomatic work, or who has not been specially designated by the President for appointment to the diplomatic service subject to examination and subject to the occurrence of an appropriate vacancy.

Upon the conclusion of the examinations, the names of the candidates who shall have attained upon the whole examination the required mark will be certified by the Board to the Secretary of State as eligible for appointment.

The names of candidates will remain on the eligible list for two years, except in the case of such candidates as shall within that period be appointed or shall withdraw their names. Names which have been on the eligible list for two years will be dropped therefrom and the candidates concerned will not again be eligible for appointment unless upon fresh application, designation anew for examination, and the successful passing of such second examination.

Applicants for appointment who are designated to take an examination and who fail to report therefor, shall not be entitled to take a subsequent examination unless they shall have been specifically designated to take such subsequent examination.

In designations for appointment subject to examination and in appointments after examination, due regard will be had to the rule, that as between candidates of equal merit, appointments should be made so as to tend to secure proportional representation of all the States and Territories in the diplomatic service; and neither in the designation for examination or certification or appointment after examination will the political affiliations of the candidates be considered.

The Board of Examiners is authorized to issue such notices and to make all such rules as it may deem necessary to accomplish the object of this regulation.

Transfers from one branch of the foreign service to another shall not occur except upon designation by the President for examination and the successful passing of the examination prescribed for the service to which such transfer is made. Unless the exigencies of the service imperatively demand it, such person to be transferred shall not have preference in designation for the taking of the examination or in appointment from the eligible list, but shall follow the course of procedure prescribed for all applicants for appointment to the service which he desires to enter. To persons employed in the Department of State at calaries of eighteen hundred dollars or more, the preceding rule shall not apply and they may be appointed, on the basis of ability and efficiency, to any grade of the diplomatic service.

The Secretary of State may, as provided by Rule III of the present Civil Service Rules, request the Civil Service Commission to hold special examinations for the position of clerk of class two or above in the Department of State, such examination to follow generally and so far as the Secretary of State shall deem practicable, the lines of the present foreign service examinations.

In the case of promotions in the Department of State to the grades of clerk of class two or above, the Secretary of State may require the passing of an examination in the general nature of the present diplomatic or consular, service examinations.

With further reference to the matter of promotions in the Department of State, the Secretary of State is directed to cause to be kept, as a guide in determining the promotion or retention of the personnel, a careful record of the efficiency of each clerk in the Department.

THE WHITE HOUSE,

November 26, 1909.

WM. H. TAFT.

IDENTIC CIRCULAR NOTE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE OF THE UNITED STATES PROPOSING ALTERNATIVE PROCEDURE FOR THE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE COURT AND THE INVESTMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE COURT WITH THE FUNCTIONS OF A COURT OF ARBITRAL JUSTICE.

The convention of October 18, 1907, for the establishment of an International Court of Prize, was signed ad referendum by the delegates of the United States to the Second Hague Peace Conference, as by the

law of this country treaties and conventions require the approval of the Senate before binding the Government and before ratifications can be exchanged with the contracting parties.

The convention appeals strongly to the sense of justice by which this Government is animated, as the establishment of the Prize Court would substitute, for a national decision, a judgment of an international and disinterested tribunal, composed of a majority of judges selected from neutral countries and thus able and desirous to safeguard neutral rights and protect neutral property. The interest this Government takes in the establishment of the International Prize Court and the benefits to be derived from its successful operation are evidenced by the following passage from President Roosevelt's annual message to Congress, dated December 3, 1907:

A further agreement of the first importance was that for the creation of an international prize court. The constitution, organization and procedure of such a tribunal were provided for in detail. Anyone who recalls the injustices under which this country suffered as a neutral power during the early part of the last century can not fail to see in this provision for an international prize court the great advance which the world is making towards the substitution of the rule of reason and justice in place of simple force. Not only will the international prize court be the means of protecting the interests of neutrals, but it is in itself a step towards the creation of the more general court for the hearing of international controversies to which reference has just been made. The organization and action of such a prize court can not fail to accustom the different countries to the submission of international questions to the decision of an international tribunal, and we may confidently expect the results of such submission to bring about a general agreement upon the enlargement of the practice.

Action upon the prize convention has been postponed owing to the dissatisfaction expressed by several powers concerning the status of the law to be administered by the court by virtue of article 7 of the convention, which dissatisfaction culminated in a formal invitation by Great Britain to Germany, the United States, Austria-Hungary, Spain, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, and Russia, to meet in December, 1908, in order to reach an agreement upon the law to be administered by the court in the absence of special conventions or universally recognized principles of international law. Pursuant to this invitation, the representatives of the powers assembled at London and remained in session until February 26, 1909, when a comprehensive, progressive, and satisfactory declaration on maritime law was unanimously approved by the conference and recommended for adoption by the nonparticipating powers.

The objection to the Prize Court Convention made by several powers at the Second Hague Peace Conference has, therefore, ceased to exist, and it is gratifying to the United States to learn that these powers are prepared to ratify the convention and to participate in the labors of the court when established. The delegation of the United States signed the Declaration of Londan, formulated at the Conference of London, and its action has been approved by the Department of State, although the Senate of the United States has not as yet had opportunity to take formal action, as it seems desirable to this Government to consider at one and the same time the Convention for the Establishment of the International Prize Court and the Declaration of London.

Although the London conference has removed the international objection to the approval of the convention for the establishment of the prize court, there is, on the part of this Government, shared, it is believed, by various signatories of the convention, a constitutional and, therefore, a national and internal difficulty which requires patience and no little good will to overcome. There is a deep-rooted objection, based upon constitutional reasons, which it is therefore unnecessary to set forth in detail, to the allowance of an appeal from a national judgment, as contemplated by the convention, which may result in the reversal of a national judgment by an international tribunal. Therefore, the United States instructed its delegates to the London conference to propose

An additional article or protocol for the consideration of and eventual acceptance by the conference, by which each signatory of the convention of October 18, 1907, shall possess the option, in accordance with local legislation, either to submit the general question of the rightfulness of any capture to the determination of the International Prize Court, or to permit an appeal from the judg. ment of a national court in a specific case direct to the International Prize Court as contemplated by the convention of October 18, 1907.

The American delegation acted as directed, and after a careful and conscientious discussion of the proposal and the difficulties it was meant to obviate, the conference adopted unanimously the following voeu:

The delegates of the powers represented at the Naval Conference which have signed or expressed the intention of signing the convention of The Hague of the 18th October, 1907, for the establishment of an International Prize Court, having regard to the difficulties of a constitutional nature which, in some States, stand in the way of the ratification of that convention in its present form, agree to call the attention of their respective Governments to the advantage of concluding an arrangement under which such States would have the power, at the time of depositing their ratifications, to add thereto a reservation to the effect that