A Unified Foreign Service

Our government maintains a large and expensive foreign service. The business interests of the country recognize the value of adequate representation abroad and support vigorously measures intended to improve and expand this field. For the fiscal year 1922–23 Congress has increased the appropriations for this branch of the public service while cutting down almost all domestic expenditures.Our service in the foreign field has only one rival in its completeness and effectiveness, and that naturally is Great Britain's. Before the war comparison was often made with Germany, France, Japan and other nations, and critics could point to individual excellencies in all of these; but they in turn were generous in praise of our service and generally accorded it first rank, especially on its promotional side. The one outstanding weakness of this service at the present time is its lack of unity, resulting in duplicate activities, rivalries, uncertainties to those using the service and needless expense to the taxpayers.