SEC. 6. Sections sixteen hundred and ninety-nine and seventeen hundred of the Revised Statutes of the United States are hereby amended to read as follows: "SEC. 1699. No consul-general, consul, or consular agent receiving a salary of more than one thousand dollars a year shall, while he holds his office, be interested in or transact any business as a merchant, factor, broker, or other trader, or as a clerk or other agent for any such person to, from, or within the port, place, or limits of his jurisdiction, directly or indirectly, either in his own name or in the name or through the agency of any other person; nor shall he practice as a lawyer for compensation or be interested in the fees or compensation of any lawyer; and he shall in his official bond stipulate as a condition thereof not to violate this prohibition. "SEC. 1700. All consular officers whose respective salaries exceed one thousand dollars a year shall be subject to the prohibition against transacting business, practicing as a lawyer, or being interested in the fees or compensation of any lawyer contained in the preceding section. And the President may extend the prohibition to any consul-general, consul, or consular agent whose salary does not exceed one thousand dollars a year or who may be compensated by fees, and to any vice or deputy consular officer or consular agent, and may require such officer to give a bond not to violate the prohibition." SEC. 7. That every consular officer of the United States is hereby required, whenever application is made to him therefor, within the limits of his consulate, to administer to or take from any person any oath, affirmation, affidavit, or deposition, and to perform any other notarial act which any notary public is required or authorized by law to do within the United States; and for every such notarial act performed he shall charge in each instance the appropriate fee prescribed by the President under section seventeen hundred and forty-five, Revised Statutes. SEC. 8. That all fees, official or unofficial, received by any officer in the consular service for services rendered in connection with the duties of his office or as a consular officer, including fees for notarial services, and fees for taking depositions, executing commissions or letters rogatory, settling estates, receiving or paying out moneys, caring for or disposing of property, shall be accounted for and paid into the Treasury of the United States, and the sole and only compensation of such officers shall be by salaries fixed by law; but this shall not apply to consular agents, who shall be paid by one half of the fees received in their offices, up to a maximum sum of one thousand dollars in any one year, the other half being accounted for and paid into the Treasury of the United States. And vice-consuls-general, deputy consuls-general, vice-consuls, and deputy consuls, in addition to such compensation as they may be entitled to receive as consuls or clerks, may receive such portion of the salaries of the consul-general or consuls for whom they act as shall be provided by regulation. SEC. 9. That fees for the consular certification of invoices shall be, and they hereby are, included with the fees for official services for which the President is authorized by section seventeen hundred and forty-five of the Revised Statutes to prescribe rates or tariffs; and sections twenty-eight hundred and fiftyone and seventeen hundred and twenty-one of the Revised Statutes are hereby repealed. SEC. 10. That every consular officer shall be provided and kept supplied with adhesive official stamps, on which shall be printed the equivalent money value of denominations and to amounts to be determined by the Department of State, and shall account quarterly to the Department of State for the use of such stamps and for such of them as shall remain in his hands. Whenever a consular officer is required or finds it necessary to perform any consular or notarial act he shall prepare and deliver to the party or parties at whose instance such act is performed a suitable and appropriate document as prescribed in the consular regulations and affix thereto and duly cancel an adhesive stamp or stamps of the denomination or denominations equivalent to the fee prescribed for such consular or notarial act, and no such act shall be legally valid within the jurisdiction of the Government of the United States unless such stamp or stamps is or are affixed and canceled. SEC. 11. That this act shall take effect on the thirtieth day of June, nineteen hundred and six. SEC. 12. That all acts or parts of acts inconsistent with this act are hereby repealed. Approved, April 5, 1906. ARGENTINE REPUBLIC. LAWS REGULATING THE PRACTICE OF THE PROFESSIONS. [NOTE. For previous correspondence, see Foreign Relations, 1905, p. 35.] No. 312.] Minister Beaupré to the Secretary of State. AMERICAN LEGATION, Buenos Aires, February 16, 1906. SIR: Referring to my No. 274 of December 14, 1905, and previous correspondence, concerning the practice of professions in this Republic, I have the honor to report that by an executive decree of the 10th instant it is provided that the diplomas received by the Argentine students sent to the different colleges in the United States by the Argentine Government, shall be sufficient and valid in this country; and that such graduates can practice their professions within the territory of the Republic without other requirement than the presentation of their diplomas to the ministry of justice and public instruction for their legalization in the customary form. The signatures of the president and secretary of the college must, however, be authenticated by the Secretary of State of the United States and ratified by a consular officer resident in that country. I am, etc., A. M. BEAUPpré. DEATH OF PRESIDENT QUINTANA AND SUCCESSION OF VICEPRESIDENT ALCORTA TO THE PRESIDENCY. Washington, March 12, 1906. Suitably express in President's name sincere condolence with family late President and his sympathy with the Argentine Govern ment and people in loss they have sustained. For. Rels., 1905. ROOT. The Argentine minister to the Secretary of State. [Translation.] LEGATION OF ARGENTINE, Mr. SECRETARY OF STATE: I have the profound sorrow of announcing to your excellency the demise of the President of the Argentine Republic, the Most Excellent Dr. Don Manuel Quintana, which took place in the early morning of yesterday. His Excellency Don José Figueroa Alcorta, vice-president of the Republic, has assumed the office of President, in accordance with the constitution, for the term that was to be filled by the deceased magistrate. EPIFANIO PORTELA. No. 7.] Be pleased to accept, etc., The Secretary of State to the Argentine minister. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, March 15, 1906. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 13th instant, by which you inform me of the death on the preceding day of His Excellency Dr. Don Manuel Quintana, President of the Argentine Republic. The sad intelligence of the death of President Quintana had previously reached us by means of a telegram from the American minister at Buenos Aires. The President at once directed Mr. Beaupré to express in his name to your Government and the afflicted family the condolence of the Government and people of the United States; and I beg you, Mr. Minister, to assure his excellency the minister of foreign affairs of my own sorrow at the loss which the Argentine Government and people have sustained in the death of this eminent statesman. I have taken note of the further fact which you communicate to me, that His Excellency Don José F. Alcorta, vice-president of the Republic, has assumed the office of president, in accordance with the constitution, for the term which was to have been filled by the deceased Executive. Accept, etc., ELIHU ROOT. MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC TO THE ARGENTINE CONGRESS. Chargé White to the Secretary of State. No. 356.] [Extracts.] AMERICAN LEGATION, Buenos Aires, May 17, 1906. SIR: I have the honor to report that on the afternoon of the 12th instant the session of the Argentine National Congress was formally opened. The ceremonies took place for the first time in the new con gress hall and the President of the Republic attended the same in person and presented his inaugural message, the opening and closing chapters of which he read before the joint assembly. The rest of the message was read by the secretary of the chamber. The chapters of the message dealing with foreign affairs, the finances, and the agricultural department are especially worthy of note. In the matter of foreign relations the President refers in no uncertain terms to the congresses that are to meet at Rio de Janeiro and The Hague: In one or other, with the programmes arranged, the Government will support its high propositions; arbitration as the only means of arranging conflicts harmonious with the exigencies of contemporary civilization; the lack of right of States to protect through diplomatic channels or in any other way the national holders of bonds of foreign public debt; the absolute respect for their rights that emanate from sovereignty; the necessity of diminishing the evils of war on land and sea by the adoption of the measures imposed by humanitarian sentiments and by the present conception of this supreme recourse of the nations; the limitation of the contraband of war to objects specially or directly prepared for hostilities; the advisability of making more rapid the means of communication and of giving expansion to the interchange on the bases of the well understood needs of each country. To the two conferences I shall give the attention that they demand; to that of Rio de Janeiro, by which the friendship of the nations of America will be strengthened on the most firm bases; to that at The Hague which will specify forms of conduct for the world's application. The celebration of both will give us an opportunity to put in evidence that we desire the confraternity of the continent, augmenting thereby the political and mercantile ties, and that we also desire equal bonds with the civilized world, while simple reasons of location in any one of the great divisions of the earth do not suffice to alter the principles of the law of nations or the rules of external commerce. The other matters of the foreign relations of this country referred to in this part of the message have received the attention of this legation during the past year. The prosperity of the country is an established fact; the financial operations and statistics of the past year, the congested condition of all the ports of the Republic, etc., leave no room for doubt of the same. The chapter on finances recognizes the fact but soberly calls attention to a deficit of 20,000,000 pesos paper, or almost nine millions gold, for the year 1905 in spite of this prosperity and of efforts for economy. The President observes that the present prosperity offers the opportunity to put the finances of the country on a basis that will defy future reverses and sees in the uncertainty of all conditions the need to do so at once. He consequently proposes a policy of conservatism, avoiding changes that may disturb confidence and credit. The financial operations of the past year, by which the debts of the nation were consolidated, were reported at the time; also the project for changing the monetary unit. The President declares himself in positive terms opposed to this change and in favor of the law of 1881 by which the present system was established. The chapter on agriculture principally deals with the primary need of the country, immigration, and means of stimulating it; such as new railways and steam navigation of certain rivers, facilitating the acquirement of land by certain provision to that end, and by the establishment of a national mortgage bank, etc. Other matters of prime importance, like alteration of the mining code, a new law of trade-marks, etc., are proposed. The chapter on public works gives its first attention to the improvement of port conditions; prompt, energetic, well-planned measures to this end are of first importance. The President has spoken openly, positively, and soberly; he is well sustained by able ministers and by a condition of prosperity and economic stability in the country such as to stir the envy of many another. With the cooperation of congress his administration will, I believe, witness great progress in its remarkable development. I am, etc., CHARLES D. WHITE. TREATY BETWEEN ÁRGENTINA AND SPAIN DISPENSING WITH AUTHENTICATION OF SIGNATURES OF LETTERS ROGATORY. No. 428.] Minister Beaupré to the Secretary of State. AMERICAN LEGATION, Buenos Aires, October 8, 1906. SIR: I have the honor herewith to transmit a copy of a convention as ratified by the executive, made between this country and Spain, whereby the requirement that the signatures of functionaries acting in matters civil or criminal that come before the courts of the respective countries through their diplomatic agents be legalized is done away with. This copy is taken from the "Boletin Oficial" (Official Bulletin), No. 3862, of the 21st ultimo, when it is published for the first time, I believe. Though signed on September 17, 1902, and approved by congress on July 31, 1903, with the approval in due course of President Roca during the ministry of Dr. J. V. Gonzales, it was not ratified by this Government until the 3d ultimo, and is not in consequence included in Volume III of the collected treaties of this country (Tratados Convenciones. Protocolos y demás Actos Internacionales Vigentes Celebrados por la Republica Argentina-Tomo Tercero Buenos Aires, 1905), of which copies were recently sent to the department. The formal exchange of ratifications was made on the 17th ultimo. I accompany the above-mentioned copy of the ratification of said convention with a translation. I am, etc., [Inclosure.] A. M. BEAUPRÉ. [Translated from the "Boletin Oficial," No. 3862, of September 21, 1906.] MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS. Convention celebrated between the Argentine Republic and the Kingdom of Spain for the suppression of the legalization of the signatures of the functionaries that intervene in the fulfillment of rogatory commissions in civil or criminal matters. José Figueroa Alcorta, constitutional President of the Argentine Republic. To all those who see these presents, greetings: Whereas between the Argentine Republic and the Kingdom of Spain there was negotiated, concluded, and signed in the city of Buenos Aires on the 17th day of the month of September of year 1902 by the plenipotentiaries of the |