aty shall be undertaken.

In this connection I renew my recommendation of one year ago, that--

To give importance to and to add to the efficiency of our diplomatic
relations with Japan and China, and to further aid in retaining the
good opinion of those peoples, and to secure to the United States its
share of the commerce destined to flow between those nations and the
balance of the commercial world, an appropriation be made to support at
least four American youths in each of those countries, to serve as a
part of the official family of our ministers there. Our representatives
would not even then be placed upon an equality with the representatives
of Great Britain and of some other powers. As now situated, our
representatives in Japan and China have to depend for interpreters and
translators upon natives of those countries, who know our language
imperfectly, or procure for the occasion the services of employees in
foreign business houses or the interpreters to other foreign ministers.

I renew the recommendation made on a previous occasion, of the transfer
to the Department of the Interior, to which they seem more appropriately
to belong, of all the powers and duties in relation to the Territories
with which the Department of State is now charged by law or by custom.

Congress from the beginning of the Government has wisely made provision
for the relief of distressed seamen in foreign countries. No similar
provision, however, has hitherto been made for the relief of citizens
in distress abroad other than seamen. It is understood to be customary
with other governments to authorize consuls to extend such relief
to their citizens or subjects in certain cases. A similar authority
and an appropriation to carry it into effect are recommended in the
case of citizens of the United States destitute or sick under such
circumstances. It is well known that such citizens resort to foreign
countries in great numbers. Though most of them are able to bear the
expenses incident to locomotion, there are some who, through accident or
otherwise, become penniless, and have no friends at home able to succor
them. Persons in this situation must either perish, cast themselves upon
the charity of foreigners, or be relieved at the private charge of our
own officers, who usually, even with the most benevolent dispositions,
have nothing to spare for such purposes.

Should the authority and appropriation asked for be