[Sidenote:  Diplomatic and consular service.] Our foreign relations are cared for in foreign countries by two distinct classes of officials:  ministers and consuls.  The former represent the United States government in a diplomatic capacity; the latter have nothing to do with diplomacy or politics, but look after our commercial interests in foreign countries.  Consuls exercise a protective care over seamen, and perform various duties for Americans abroad.  They can take testimony and administer estates.  In some non-Christian countries, such as China, Japan, and Turkey, they have jurisdiction over criminal cases in which Americans are concerned.  Formerly our ministers abroad were of only three grades:  (1) “envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary;” (2) “ministers resident;” (3) charges d’affaires.  The first two are accredited by the president to the head of government of the countries to which they are sent; the third are accredited by the secretary of state to the minister of foreign affairs in the countries to which they are sent.  We still retain these grades, which correspond to the lower grades of the diplomatic service in European countries.  Until lately we had no highest grade answering to that of “ambassador,” perhaps because when our diplomatic service was organized the United States did not yet rank among first-rate powers, and could not expect to receive ambassadors.  Great powers, like France and Germany, send ambassadors to each other, and envoys to inferior powers, like Denmark or Greece or Guatemala.  When we send envoys to the great powers, we rank ourselves along with inferior powers; and diplomatic etiquette as a rule obliges the great powers to send to us the same grade of minister that we send to them.  There were found to be some practical inconveniences about this, so that in 1892 the highest grade was adopted and our ministers to Great Britain and France were made ambassadors.

[Sidenote:  The secretary of the treasury.] The cabinet officer second in rank and in some respects first in importance is the secretary of the treasury.  He conducts the financial business of the government, superintends the collection of revenue, and gives warrants for the payment of moneys from the treasury.  He also superintends the coinage, the national banks, the custom-houses, the coast-survey and lighthouse system, the marine hospitals, and life-saving service.[21] He sends reports to Congress, and suggests such measures as seem good to him.  Since the Civil War his most weighty business has been the management of the national debt.  He is aided by two assistant secretaries, six auditors, a register, a comptroller, a solicitor, a director of the mint, commissioner of internal revenue, chiefs of the bureau of statistics and bureau of engraving and printing, etc.  The business of the treasury department is enormous, and no part of our government has been more faithfully administered.  Since 1789 the treasury has disbursed more than seven billions of dollars without one serious defalcation.  No man directly interested in trade or commerce can be appointed secretary of the treasury, and the department has almost always been managed by “men of small incomes bred either to politics or the legal profession.” [22]