I earnestly recommend to the favorable action of the Congress the estimates submitted by the Department of State and most especially the legislation suggested in the Secretary of State's letter of this date whereby it will be possible to develop and make permanent the reorganization of the Department upon modern lines in a manner to make it a thoroughly efficient instrument in the furtherance of our foreign trade and of American interests abroad. The plan to have Divisions of Latin-American and Far Eastern Affairs and to institute a certain specialization in business with Europe and the Near East will at once commend itself. These politico-geographical divisions and the detail from the diplomatic or consular service to the Department of a number of men, who bring to the study of complicated problems in different parts of the world practical knowledge recently gained on the spot, clearly is of the greatest advantage to the Secretary of State in foreseeing conditions likely to arise and in conducting the great variety of correspondence and negotiation. It should be remembered that such facilities exist in the foreign offices of all the leading commercial nations and that to deny them to the Secretary of State would be to place this Government at a great disadvantage in the rivalry of commercial competition. The consular service has been greatly improved under the law of April 5, 1906, and the Executive Order of June 27, 1906, and I commend to your consideration the question of embodying in a statute the principles of the present Executive Order upon which the efficiency of our consular service is wholly dependent.