privileges of French and German consuls do not
differ materially from those of British consuls; but there is a great
difference in the organization and _personnel_ of the consular service.
In France, apart from the _consuls elus_ or _consuls marchands_, who are
mere consular agents, selected by the government from among the traders
of a town where it desires to be represented, and unsalaried, the
consular body proper was, by the decrees of July 10, 1880, and April 27,
1883, practically constituted a branch of the diplomatic service. It is
recruited from the same sources, and its members are free to exchange
into the _corps diplomatique_, or vice versa. Candidates for the
diplomatic and consular services have to undergo the same training and
pass the same examinations, i.e. in the constitutional, administrative
and judicial organization of the various powers, in international law,
commercial law and maritime law, in the history of treaties and in
commercial and political geography, in political economy, and in the
German and English languages. They have to serve three years abroad or
attached to some ministerial department before they can enter for the
examination which entitles them to an appointment as attache or as
_consul suppleant_. This assimilation of the consular to the diplomatic
service remains peculiar to France.[3]

In Germany it was enacted by the law of February 28, 1873, that German
consuls must be either trained jurists, or must have passed special
examinations. The result of this system has been the establishment
throughout the world of an elaborate network of trained commercial
experts, directly responsible to the central government, and charged as
one of their principal duties with the task of keeping the government
informed of all that may be of interest to German traders. These annual
consular reports were from the first regularly and promptly published in
the _Deutsche Handelsarchiv_, and have contributed much to the wonderful
expansion of German trade. The right to establish consuls is now
universally recognized by Christian civilized states. Jurists at one
time contended that according to international law a right of
"ex-territoriality" attached to consuls, their persons and dwellings
being sacred, and themselves amenable to local authority only in cases
of strong suspicion on political grounds. It is now admitted that, apart
from treaty, custom has established very few consular privileges; that