Consul, MERCANTILE, the name given to those officers whom the state maintains in foreign countries for the protection of its trade and vindication of the rights of its merchants, and to whom the further duty is assigned of keeping the home government informed of all facts bearing on the commercial interests of the country. The practice of appointing such officers originated among the trading communities of Italy about the middle of the 12th century, and gradually extended itself; and in the 16th century had been adopted by all the countries of Europe. In addition to their commercial duties, others of a more strictly political kind were frequently confided to consuls in places in which there was no ambassador or political agent. In almost all civilised countries consuls are divided into consuls-general, consuls, vice-consuls, and consular agents. The consul's first duty on his arrival is to exhibit his commission to the authorities of the country to which he is accredited, in order that he may obtain their sanction to his appointment. This sanction is communicated to him in a document called an exequatur, which secures to him the enjoyment of such 'privileges, immunities, and exemptions as have been enjoyed by his predecessors, and as are usually granted to consuls in the country in which he is to reside.'
The general duties of English consuls are communicated to them in printed instructions. In these the consul is ordered to make himself conversant with the laws and general principles which relate to the trade of Great Britain with foreign parts, and with the language and municipal laws of the country wherein he resides. Further, it is his duty to protect his countrymen in the lawful exercise of their trade, to quiet their differences, to obtain the redress of injuries done them—failing which, to report the matter to the English ambassador at the capital of the country—and to forward to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs an annual return of the trade carried on at the different ports within his consulate, as well as a quarterly account of the market prices of agricultural produce during each week of the quarter, the course of exchange, &c. The consul must afford relief to British seamen or other subjects wrecked on the coast, and endeavour to procure them the means of returning to England. The commanders of British war-ships touching on the coast are entitled to call on him for intelligence, and aid in procuring supplies of water, provisions, and the like; and it is his duty to endeavour to recover all wrecks and stores, &c. of queen's ships, whether found at sea and brought into the port at which he resides, or thrown on the coast. As regards his 'privileges and immunities,' a consul engaged in trade is amenable to the civil jurisdiction of the state to which he is accredited, but a consul sent out from this country, and not engaging in trade, has always been exempted from the taxes of the country in which he resides. A consul can perform all the acts of a notary-public, all deeds executed by him being acknowledged as valid by our courts of law. The fiction is, that the consulate is the territory of the country from which the consul is sent, and, consequently, that deeds and acts done within it, or under the consul's seal, are done in England. Hence the marriage of British subjects recorded in the books of a British consul is a valid ceremony.
Consuls in various foreign countries have special powers regulated by what are called 'capitulations.' They act as judges in consular courts to whose jurisdiction all subjects of their nation are amenable, to the exclusion of the native tribunals. Such privileges are enjoyed by English consuls in Turkey and the Levant, Morocco and other parts of Africa, China, Corea, Muscat, Siam, and the Western Pacific. In Egypt there are mixed international courts as well as consular courts. In Japan the capitulations were abolished in 1895, and in Madagascar when the island became French.
The first care of every Levantine trader is to obtain the protection of some foreign power, so that he may set at defiance the local courts, and, to some extent, the local executive authority. To obtain letters of nationalisation as a British subject is rightly made somewhat difficult; but this is not the case with most other European nations. The capitulations are especially injurious in Egypt, where the native authorities and their English advisers are constantly thwarted in their endeavours to promote order and good government by the ill-defined and jealously-asserted power of the foreign consuls.
Of late years attempts have been made to establish a body of trained men from among whom the consular service in the Levant, as well as in China and Japan, could be recruited, and student interpretations have been founded. The student interpreters are selected by competitive examination in England, and are sent to Constantinople or to the far East, as the case may be, with a salary of £200 a year. Their advancement 'depends entirely on the ability which they may show after their arrival at their destination, and on their general steadiness and good conduct.'
Consuls who are permitted to trade are not required to pass any examination, but members of what may be called the regular service are supposed to do so. The limit of age for appointments is twenty-five to fifty.
In the United States, literary and scientific men are frequently appointed to important consulships abroad, Hawthorne and Bret Harte having, for example, been consuls in Britain. In the British service the names of Charles Lever, Mr Stigand, Gifford Palgrave, and Sir Richard Burton are modern examples of such appointments.
The salary of British consuls varies from £2500 (chief-justice of the Supreme Court for China and Japan), to the nominal salary of many vice-consuls. Among the more important posts are the consul-general at Shanghai, £1600; consul-general at New York, £2000; consul at Boston, £1200; New Orleans, £1100; Zanzibar, £2150; Honolulu, £1100; Sofia, £1200; Beyrout, £1250; Manila, £1100; Old Calabar, £1200; the consul-general and judge at Constantinople, £1600. The United States consuls at London, Liverpool, Paris, Rio Janeiro, and Havana have each, apart from fees, a salary of $6000.