If this sound, practical wisdom had only been propounded and acted upon years ago the benefits that England would have derived therefrom would have been incalculable. But look at the facts regarding the countries where efficient and effective Consular Service was most wanted during the war. In Scandinavia there were gentlemen selected to represent us as British _Vice-Consuls_ who received a _fixed salary of £5 per annum_, in return for which they had to _provide office_, _clerks_, _telephone_, and other incidentals. Although the fees paid to them by virtue of their office and the duties they performed may have amounted to several hundred pounds per annum, they were compelled to hand over the whole of the fruits of their labours to the English Government, which thus made a very handsome profit out of its favours so bestowed. Our Foreign Office apparently considered that the honour of the title "British Vice-Consul" was quite a sufficient recompense for the benefits it demanded in return, the laborious duties which it required should be constantly attended to, and the £20 to £50 or more per annum which their representatives were certain to find themselves out of pocket at the end of each year. Soon after the war commenced one or two members of the service were removed from the largest centres and other men introduced, presumably on a special rate of pay; but in almost all the Vice-Consulates the disgracefully mean and unsatisfactory system above mentioned seemed to have been continued without any attempt at reformation. Is it to be wondered at that so many Vice-Consuls who are not Englishmen did not feel that strong bond of sympathy either with our Ministers abroad or with our Ministers at home, which those who have no knowledge of the conditions of their appointment or of their service might be led to expect existed between them? Further light is shown upon this rotten spot in our Governmental diplomacy management abroad by an article entitled "Scrap our Alien Consuls," written by T. B. Donovan and published in a London paper, February 20th, 1916, short extracts from which read as follows: "Look up in Whitaker's Almanack for 1914 our Consuls in the German Empire before the war--and cease to wonder that we were not better informed. Out of a total of forty old British Consuls more than thirty bear German names! Other nations were not so blind.... Glance through the following astounding list. In Sweden, twenty-four out of thirty-one British Consuls and Vice-Consuls are non-Englishmen; in Norway, twenty-six out of thirty; in Denmark, nineteen out of twenty-six; in Holland and its Colonies, fourteen out of twenty-four; in Switzerland nine out of fourteen--and several of the few Englishmen are stationed at holiday resorts where there is no trade at all. "And we are astonished that our blockade 'leaks at every seam'!...