: Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th Edition Constantine Pavlovich to Convention Volume 7 Slice 2 by Various - Encyclopedias and dictionaries

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Until the year 1825 British consuls were usually merchants engaged in trade in the foreign countries in which they acted as consuls, and their remuneration consisted entirely of fees. An act of that year, however, organized the consular service as a branch of the civil service, with payment by a fixed salary instead of by fees; consuls were forbidden also to engage in trade, and the management of the service was put under the control of a separate department of the foreign office, created for the purpose. In 1832 the restriction as to engaging in trade was withdrawn, except as regards salaried members of the British consular service.

The duty of consuls, under the "General Instructions to British Consuls," is to advise His Majesty's trading subjects, to quiet their differences, and to conciliate as much as possible the subjects of the two countries. Treaty rights he is to support in a mild and moderate spirit; and he is to check as far as possible evasions by British traders of the local revenue laws. Besides assisting British subjects who are tried for offences in the local courts, and ascertaining the humanity of their treatment after sentence, he has to consider whether home or foreign law is more appropriate to the case, having regard to the convenience of witnesses and the time required for decision; and, where local courts have wrongfully interfered, he puts the home government in motion through the consul-general or ambassador. He sends in reports on the labour, manufacture, trade, commercial legislation and finance, technical education, exhibitions and conferences of the country or district in which he resides, and, generally, furnishes information on any subject which may be desired of him. He acts as a notary public; he draws up marine and commercial protests, attests documents brought to him, and, if necessary, draws up wills, powers of attorney, or conveyances. He celebrates marriages in accordance with the provisions of the Foreign Marriage Act 1892, and, where the ministrations of a clergyman cannot be obtained, reads the burial service. At a seaport he has certain duties to perform in connexion with the navy. In the absence of any of His Majesty's ships he is senior naval officer; he looks after men left behind as stragglers, or in hospital or prison, and sends them on in due course to the nearest ship. He is also empowered by statute to advance for the erection or maintenance of Anglican churches, hospitals, and places of interment sums equal to the amount subscribed for the purpose by the resident British subjects.

As the powers and duties of consuls vary with the particular commercial interests they have to protect, and the civilization of the state in whose territory they reside, instead of abstract definition, we summarize the provisions on this subject of the British Merchant Shipping Acts. Consuls are bound to send to the Board of Trade such reports or returns on any matter relating to British merchant shipping or seamen as they may think necessary. Where a consul suspects that the shipping or navigation laws are being evaded, he may require the owner or master to produce the log-book or other ship documents ; he may muster the crew, and order explanations with regard to the documents. Where an offence has been committed on the high seas, or aboard ashore, by British seamen or apprentices, the consul makes inquiry on oath, and may send home the offender and witnesses by a British ship, particulars for the Board of Trade being endorsed on the agreement for conveyance. He is also empowered to detain a foreign ship the master or seamen of which appear to him through their misconduct or want of skill to have caused injury to a British vessel, until the necessary application for satisfaction or security be made to the local authorities. Every British mercantile ship, not carrying passengers, on entering a port gives into the custody of the consul to be endorsed by him the seamen's agreement, the certificate of registry, and the official log-book; a failure to do this is reported to the registrar-general of seamen. The following five provisions are also made for the protection of seamen. If a British master engage seamen at a foreign port, the engagement is sanctioned by the consul, acting as a superintendent of Mercantile Marine Offices. The consul collects the property of British seamen or apprentices dying abroad, and remits to H.M. paymaster-general. He also provides for the subsistence of seamen who are shipwrecked, discharged, or left behind, even if their service was with foreign merchants; they are generally sent home in the first British ship that happens to be in want of a complement, and the expenses thus incurred form a charge on the parliamentary fund for the relief of distressed seamen, the consul receiving a commission of 2 1/2 % on the amount disbursed. Complaints by crews as to the quality and quantity of the provisions on board are investigated by the consul, who enters a statement in the log-book and reports to the Board of Trade. Money disbursed by consuls on account of the illness or injury of seamen is generally recoverable from the owner. With regard to passenger vessels, the master is bound to give the consul facilities for inspection and for communication with passengers, and to exhibit his "master's list," or list of passengers, so that the consul may transmit to the registrar-general, for insertion in the Marine Register Book, a report of the passengers dying and children born during the voyage. The consul may even defray the expenses of maintaining, and forwarding to their destination, passengers taken off or picked up from wrecked or injured vessels, if the master does not undertake to proceed in six weeks; these expenses becoming, in terms of the Passenger Acts 1855 and 1863, a debt due to His Majesty from the owner or charterer, where a salvor is justified in detaining a British vessel, the master may obtain leave to depart by going with the salvor before the consul, who, after hearing evidence as to the service rendered and the proportion of ship's value and freight claimed, fixes the amount for which the master is to give bond and security. In the case of a foreign wreck the consul is held to be the agent of the foreign owner. Much of the notarial business which is imposed on consuls, partly by statute and partly by the request of private parties, consists in taking the declarations as to registry, transfers, &c., under the Mercantile Shipping Acts. Consuls in the Ottoman empire, China, Siam and Korea have extensive judicial and executive powers.

FOOTNOTES:

Particular quarters of mercantile cities were assigned to foreign traders and were placed under the jurisdiction of their own magistrates, variously styled syndics, provosts , ?chevins , &c., who had power to fine or to expel from the quarter. The Hanseatic League , particularly, had numerous settlements of this kind, the earliest being the Steelyard at London, established in the 13th century.

i.e. as regards the organization of the system. Consuls, or consuls-general, of other countries have sometimes a diplomatic or quasi-diplomatic status. Consuls-general charg?s d'affaires, e.g., rank as diplomatic agents. Of these the most notable is the British agent and consul-general in Egypt, whose position is unique. The diplomatic agent of Belgium at Buenos Aires, e.g., is minister-resident and consul-general, and the minister of Ecuador in London is consul-general charg? d'affaires.

See also instructions to consuls prepared by the Board of Trade and approved by the secretary of state for foreign affairs.

His festival was celebrated on the of August and the 15th of December. On the former date, the flamen Quirinalis, assisted by the vestals, offered sacrifice, and the pontifices presided at horse and chariot races in the circus. It was a day of public rejoicing; all kinds of rustic amusements took place, amongst them running on ox-hides rubbed with oil . Horses and mules, crowned with garlands, were given rest from work. A special feature of the games in the circus was chariot racing, in which mules, as the oldest draught beasts, took the place of horses. The origin of these games was generally attributed to Romulus; but by some they were considered an imitation of the Arcadian introduced by Evander. There was a sanctuary of Consus on the Aventine, dedicated by L. Papirius Cursor in 272, in early times wrongly identified with the altar in the circus.

CONTANGO, a Stock Exchange term for the rate of interest paid by a "bull" who has bought stock for the rise and does not intend to pay for it when the Settlement arrives. He arranges to carry over or continue his bargain, and does so by entering into a fresh bargain with his seller, or some other party, by which he sells the stock for the Settlement and buys it again for the next, the price at which the bargain is entered being called the making-up price. The rate that he pays for this accommodation, which amounts to borrowing the money involved until the next Settlement, is called the contango.

CONTARINI, the name of a distinguished Venetian family, who gave to the republic eight doges and many other eminent citizens. The story of their descent from the Roman family of Cotta, appointed prefects of the Reno valley , is probably a legend. One Mario Contarini was among the twelve electors of the doge Paulo Lucio Anafesto in 697. Domenico Contarini, elected doge in 1043, subjugated rebellious Dalmatia and recaptured Grado from the patriarch of Aquileia. He died in 1070. Jacopo was doge from 1275 to 1280. Andrea was elected doge in 1367, and during his reign the war of Chioggia took place ; he was the first to melt down his plate and mortgage his property for the benefit of the state. Other Contarini doges were: Francesco , Niccol? , who built the church of the Salute, Carlo , during whose reign the Venetians gained the naval victory of the Dardanelles, Domenico and Alvise . There were at one time no less than eighteen branches of the family; one of the most important was that of Contarini dallo Zaffo or di Giaffa, who had been invested with the countship of Jaffa in Syria for their services to Caterina Cornaro, queen of Cyprus; another was that of Contarini degli Scrigni , so called on account of their great wealth. Many members of the family distinguished themselves in the service of the republic, in the wars against the Turks, and no less than seven Contarini fought at Lepanto. One Andrea Contarini was beheaded in 1430 for having wounded the doge Francesco Foscari on the nose. Other members of the house were famous as merchants, prelates and men of letters; among these we may mention Cardinal Gasparo Contarini , and Marco Contarini , who was celebrated as a patron of music and collected at his villa of Piazzola a large number of valuable musical MSS., now in the Marciana library at Venice. The family owned many palaces in various parts of Venice, and several streets still bear its name.

CONT?, NICOLAS JACQUES , French mechanical genius, chemist and painter, was born at Aunou-sur-Orne, near S?es, on the 4th of August 1755, of a family of poor farm labourers. At the age of fourteen he displayed precocious artistic talent in a series of religious panels, remarkably fine in colour and composition, for the principal hospital of S?es, where he was employed to help the gardener. With the advice of Greuze he took up portrait painting, quickly became the fashion, and laid by in a few years a fair competency. From that time he gave free rein to his passion for the mechanical arts and scientific studies. He attended the lectures of J. A. C. Charles, L. N. Vaquelin and J. B. Leroy, and exhibited before the Academy of Science an hydraulic machine of his own invention of which the model was the subject of a flattering report, and was placed in Charles's collection. The events of the Revolution soon gave him an opportunity for a further display of his inventive faculty. The war with England deprived France of plumbago; he substituted for it an artificial substance obtained from a mixture of graphite and clay, and took out a patent in 1795 for the form of pencil which still bears his name. At this time he was associated with Monge and Berthollet in experiments in connexion with the inflation of military balloons, was conducting the school for that department of the engineer corps at Meudon, was perfecting the methods of producing hydrogen in quantity, and was appointed by the Directory to the command of all the aerostatic establishments. He was at the head of the newly created Conservatoire des arts et m?tiers, and occupied himself with experiments in new compositions of permanent colours, and in 1798 constructed a metal-covered barometer for measuring comparative heights, by observing the weight of mercury issuing from the tube. Summoned by Bonaparte to take part as chief of the aerostatic corps in the expedition to Egypt, he considerably extended his field of activity, and for three years and a half was, to quote Berthollet, "the soul of the colony." The disaster of Aboukir and the revolt of Cairo had caused the loss of the greater part of the instruments and munitions taken out by the French. Cont?, who, as Monge says, "had every science in his head and every art in his hands," and whom the First Consul described as "good at everything," seemed to be everywhere at once and triumphed over apparently insurmountable difficulties. He made, in an almost uncivilized country, utensils, tools and machinery of every sort from simple windmills to stamps for minting coin. Thanks to his activity and genius, the expedition was provided with bread, cloth, arms and munitions of war; the engineers with the exact tools of their trade; the surgeons with operating instruments. He made the designs, built the models, organized and supervised the manufacture, and seemed to be able to invent immediately anything required. On his return to France in 1802 he was commissioned by the minister of the interior, Chaptal, to superintend the publication of the great work of the commission on Egypt, and an engraving machine of his construction materially shortened this task, which, however, he did not live to see finished. He died at Paris on the 6th of December 1805. Napoleon had included him in his first promotions to the Legion of Honour. A bronze statue was erected to his memory in 1852 at S?es, by public subscription.

CONTEMPT OF COURT, in English law, any disobedience or disrespect to the authority or privileges of a legislative body, or interference with the administration of a court of justice.

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