THE CUBA REVIEW 



Capturing Criminals 



Few weeks go by without an attempt of some violator of our laws to find safety from 

 their operation in some foreign country, necessitating the detention of the offender and his 

 extradition for trial in our courts. Last year Consuls assisted in eighty cases of extradi- 

 tion of fugitives from justice. It is likewise part of the duty of a Consul to send home 

 for trial persons committing crimes on the high seas upon American merchant vessels. 



It is a common function of consular officers to take depositions and execute judicial 

 commissions for use in the courts of this country. Perhaps one of the most expensive 

 cases of this description was that of a suit of a steamship company against the Alien 

 Property Custodian, which occupied part of the time of the Consul General at Copen- 

 hagen for 122 days and embraced 3,360 pages of testimony, the examination of fifteen 

 witnesses and involved the payment to the Government of fees in the amount of $4,612. 

 In 1921 more than 500 commissions to take testimony were executed. 



Here Are Some Varied Duties 



For many years the Consul has been a sort of guardian of the old soldier and has 

 executed pension vouchers and acted as a distributor of pension checks to the veterans of 

 the Civil War residing abroad. Consuls have also been the officers before whom inventors 

 executed many of their applications for patents in the United States. They have supplied 

 the Department of the Interior with geological data, with information in regard to mines 

 and mining and with a vast amount of information about educational systems and educa- 

 tional conditions which has found its way to the public through the bulletins of the Bureau 

 of Education. This Bureau finds the information supplied by consular officers indis- 

 pensable in enabling it to carry on its Division of Foreign Education to give to American 

 schools the benefit of the experience and researches of the world in the field of education, 

 and to evaluate in terms of school credits in the United States the school credits of 

 students from abroad, whose numbers are increasing. 



Trade Work Well Known 



Perhaps the best advertised functions of consular officers are those relating to the 

 promotion of trade. Great stress has been laid during the past decade upon this branch 

 of consular activity, and as a result there has been created a great commercial intelligence 

 system out of such portions of the time of Consuls as are not required for the performance 

 of their other regular functions. 



For example, Consuls are expected to reply fully and in a practical manner to inquiries 

 from business men in regard to commercial questions and the possibility of marketing 

 their products abroad, to furnish explicit and comprehensive data upon the requirements 

 and demands of consumers in the markets of their respective districts, to report upon 

 local trade attributes and peculiarities, especially as they relate to sales and payments and 

 best methods of reaching the markets, and the nature of the merchandise sold in their 

 districts which can be supplied to good advantage by the United States. Consuls replied 

 in 1921 to 82,237 trade inquiries. 



Besides answering these specific inquiries Consuls are expected to attach a printed 

 information sheet concerning their districts, giving boundaries, population, tariff provisions, 

 principal products, trade tendencies and other facts designed to furnish the American 

 exporter an outline of the principal conditions under which his merchandise is to be sold. 



Reports upon all phases of trade extension for 1921 numbered 15,582, all of which 

 were forwarded to the Department of Commerce for publication or distribution in some 

 other manner to the business men of the country. 



The Consular Service is more particularly interested in obtaining concrete results in 

 trade extension work and to that end makes a special effort to gather and report trade 

 opportunities. An average of 150 such trade opportunities are received every month and 

 disseminated to the public through the Department of Commerce. The direct result of 

 this service is the sale of millions of dollars' worth of American goods in foreign countries. 



To illustrate, Frederic W. Coding, Consul General at Guayaquil, reported a trade 



