EXPANSION OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT.
An increase of some two and a-half million dollars in the State Department appropriation reflects President Hoover's determination to strengthen and expand the American Foreign Service. The total appropriation for 1931 now amounts to about seventeen and a-quarter million dollars, and contemplates additions to the present personnel, enhanced status, and higher salaries at Washington and abroad. Attention has been directed to the need for a more adequate provision by the recent resignations of the American Ministers to Canada and China, both of whom are understood to have found it imperative, in justice to their families, to leave the public service for private employment. How unfavourably the present provision for the American Foreign Service com- pares with that of other countries is illustrated by the fact that while the British Ambassador at Washington is provided with a salary and allowances amounting to $90,000 a year, Ambassador Dawes, in London, receives only $17,500 a year. Recent reports showing that the average number of treaties negotiated by the United States annually has more than trebled during the last four years, while the foreign trade has now reached a point at which American exports exceed those of any other country, further emphasize the need for expan- sion of the Foreign Service.
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