DIPLOMACY UNVEILED.
The Foreign Office List and Diplomatic and Consular Year-Book for 1907. Edited by Godfrey E. P. Hertslet, of the Foreign Office. (Harrison and Sons. 10s. 6d.)—This semi-official year-book gives trustworthy information on a variety of topics connected with the personal, administrative, and financial organisation of the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic and Consular Services. The establish- ment of the Office, from the Secretary of State to the lady type- writers and the coal-porters, with the distribution of work, are fully tabulated, while suitable schedules exhibit all our Embassies and Consulates, with their respective staffs, salaries, and allow- ances. Further, the regulations for leave of absence, pay, and pensions are codified, specimen examination-papers being added, from which the aspirant to employment under the Foreign Office may learn the present severities of the ordeals to be faced under the Anglo-Chinese competitive system. The Tailoring Department is not neglected: the usual uniforms are minutely classified and described, and a splendid coloured picture shows how our diplomatists and Consuls look in the new white drill uniform graciously approved by his Majesty for use in hot climates. Of capital value is the " Statement of Services," which is a complete official biography of all persons on the Foreign Office Active and Retired Lists, at home or abroad. The general reader will be interested in the chapter on the foreign property of his Majesty's Government : from its pages Mr. Bryce, for instance, may learn that the Board of Works is responsible for the upkeep of the billiard- and ball-rooms, of his study, and certain other appurte- nances of the Washington Embassy. Sir Cecil Spring Rice, again, is duly informed that the expenditure on tents for his summer residence near Teheran is met by the British taxpayer. The book
could not record the retirement on July 1st of the Assistant- Under-Secretary of the Office, who in his earlier capacity of private secretary to various Secretaries of State proved himself a model occupant of one of the most slippery of official posts. Never under the bondage of "red-tape" or infected by " the insolence of office," he was always ready with the categorical imperative, or with what Burke called " balmy diplomatic diachylon," as the case might require. Our Ambassadors and Attaches will not know Downing Street without Sir Eric Barrington.
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