ficiencies in annual appropriations that must be apportioned, ex cept in case of an emergency or other unusual circumstance which could not be anticipated either by the Department or by Congress The penalties which are imposed by this law on account of the failure to comply with it are such that it is believed that those who are charged with the responsibility of expending appropria tions will so administer the service under their jurisdiction as to keep their expenditures within the amounts appropriated for the entire year.

There have been reported in other appropriation bills many legislative provisions, many of which have been enacted into law, restrictive in their character and imposing limitations upon departmental officers that will tend to improve administrative methods and effect economy in the public expenditures.

One provision reported in the legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation bill is worthy of special mention. It is the provision enacted to put a stop to the practice of the several Executive Departments of the Government competing with each other for clerical services. It will have the effect also of preventing the demoralization which now happens as a result of clerks, as soon as they are appointed in one Department, seeking positions in another Department where the compensation is greater than that in the Department in which they are employed. This provision prohibits the transfer of any clerk from one Department to another until he has served in the Department from which he desires to be transferred at least three years.

Another, and still more important provision, as viewed by the Committee on Appropriations, is the one which is now a law as a part of the Sundry Civil appropriation act, requiring the heads of each Department in the future to report to the Secretary of the Treasury, within thirty days after the close of every fiscal year, a statement of all money received by them during the previous fiscal year for or on account of the public service or in any other manner in the discharge of their official duties, other than as salaries or compensation, which was not paid into the general Treasury of the United States, together with a detailed account of all payments, if any made from such funds during said year.

It was ascertained by the Committee on Appropriations in the course of its investigations that in some fiscal years many millions of dollars, representing proceeds of public property or money derived from some source on account of the public service, was being handled by Department officials without any account of the same being taken as a part of the receipts or expenditures of the Government. The fact that no dishonesty or irregularity has occurred because of this unbusinesslike method in the public service did not argue, in the opinion of the committee, that this effective precaution should not be taken against the possibility of breach of trust encouraged, or at least not guarded against, by the law.

While the expenditures of our Government are constantly increasing, and while the appropriations made therefor by Congress are in the aggregate very large, yet when we take into consideration the marvelous growth of the country, the extent to which the people demand that the Federal Government shall perform services that should be paid by the States, none but the unthinking or misguided who do not stop to consider the care with which the estimates for appropriations for the public service are scrutinized by the several committees having jurisdiction of appropriation bills can find any reason to criticise appropriations made during this session of Congress.

During the seven months of this session the Committee on Appropriations has spent practically all of the time in endeavoring to ascertain what appropriations can be eliminated without detriment to the public service, and what changes in administration should be made to reduce expenditures. The hearings on the several appropriation bills reported from the general Committee on Appropriations during this session cover nearly 4,000 printed pages, and comprise three large volumes. These hearings have been more extensive during this session than in any previous Congress all for the purpose of avoiding unnecessary or extravagant appropriations.

Notwithstanding the aggregate amount of our public expenditures and the aggregate amount of the appropriations therefor, the per capita cost of Government in the United States, including Federal and State, is less than that in any European country, as shown by figures derived from authentic sources.

The following table gives a succinct history of the appropriation bills for the session, showing the estimates submitted, the bills as reported and passed by the House, as reported to and passed by the Senate, and as finally enacted, together with the amounts of the laws for the previous fiscal year:

A TWO BILLION CONGRESS?

From New York Times (Democratic), June 30, 1906.

Are we a "two-billion-dollar country?" That is the question suggested by the dispatches from Washington as to the appropriations for the Fifty-ninth Congress and the recollection of the remark of the late Speaker Reed when the public mind was excited over appropriations of half that amount. The answer to The question is that we have not really reached the two-billion mark by a very considerable margin, but that the growth and prosperity of the country do pretty fairly correspond to the actual increase in expenditure.

The figures that have so far been made as a basis for the calculation of two billions for the two sessions of the present Congress include nearly $200,000,000 for each year for the Post Office Department, almost the whole of which is returned to the Treasury. Making this deduction, we find that while the appropriations may amount to some $1,839,000,000, the expenditures will be less than $1,500,000,000. Frankly, we do not think that such a sum is out of proportion to the general condition and the needs of the country. It is co siderably less than $10 a head for the population each year.

AMERICA BECOMES FIRST.

Goes Ahead of Great Britain as Leading Export Nation.

The calendar year 1905 witnessed wonderful strides in the commercial transactions of the leading nations. Most noteworthy was the revelation that the United States, which, in 1904, ranked second as an export nation, last year took first rank, and again stands, as in 1903, with the record of selling more goods than any other country in the world. The total imports and exports of merchandise of the principal countries from which they are available, with comparative figures for the previous year, have been tabulated by the British Board of Trade, and are here pre¡sented. These figures do not include re-exports:

(Prepared by the clerks to the Committees on Appropriations of the Senate and House of Representatives.)

Total estimated revenues for fiscal year 1907.

FOOTNOTES FOR PRECEDING PAGE.

*One-half of the amounts for the District of Columbia payable by the United States, except amounts for the Water Department (estimated for 1907 at $164,166), which are payable from the revenues of the Water Department.

Includes all expenses of the postal service payable from postal revenues and out of the Treasury.

No amount is estimated for rivers and harbors for 1907 except the sum of $14,000,000 to meet contracts authorized by law for river and harbor improvements included in the sundry civil estimates for 1907.

§No river and harbor act was passed for 1907.

||In addition to this amount, the sum of $10,544,132 is appropriated in the sundry civil act to carry out contracts authorized by law for river and harbor improvements for 1906.

This amount includes $14,000,000 to meet contracts authorized by law for river and harbor improvements for 1907.

**This amount includes $17,318,976.14 to carry out contracts authorized by law for river and harbor improvements and $25,456,415.08 for construction of the Isthmian
canal for 1907.

This amount includes $10,544,132 to carry out contracts authorized by law for river and harbor improvements for 1906.
This amount is approximated.

§§This amount includes $10,250,000 under the Oklahoma and New Mexico act, and $10,321,600 for new public buildings, and is approximated.

In addition to this amount the sum of $25,456,415.08 is appropriated in the sundry civil act and $5,990,786 in the urgent deficiency act, making the total appropriations passed at this season for the Isthmian canal $42,447,201.08.

This is the amount submitted by the Secretary of the Treasury in the annual estimates for the fiscal year 1907, the exact amount appropriated not being ascerThis amount includes estimated amount of $57,000,000 to meet sinking-fund obligations for 1907, and tainable until two years after the close of the fiscal year. $22,000,000 estimated redemptions of national-bank notes in 1907 out of deposits by banks for that purpose.

***This sum includes approximately $31,000,000 not included in formal estimates from the Departments to Congress.

RAILROAD RATE ACT.

An Act To amend an Act entitled "An Act to regulate commerce, approved February fourth, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, and all Acts amendatory thereof, and to enlarge the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section one of an Act entitled "An Act to regulate commerce," approved February fourth, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, be amended so as to read as follows:

"Sec. 1. That the provisions of this Act shall apply to any corporation or any person or persons engaged in the transportation of oil or other commodity, except water and except natural or artificial gas, by means of pipe lines, or partly by pipe lines and partly by railroad, or partly by pipe lines and partly by water, who shall be considered and held to be common carriers within the meaning and purpose of this Act, and to any common carrier or carriers engaged in the transportation of passengers or property wholly by railroad (or partly by railroad and partly by water when both are used under a common control, management, or arrangement for a continuous carriage or shipment), from one State or Territory of the United States, or the District of Columbia, to any other State or Territory of the United States, or the District of Columbia, or from one place in a Territory to another place in the same Territory, or from any place in the United States to an adjacent foreign country, or from any place in the United States through a foreign country to any other place in the United States, and also to the transportation in like manner of property shipped from any place in the United States to a foreign country and carried from such place to a port of transshipment, or shipped from a foreign country to any place in the United States and carried to such place from a port of entry either in the United States or an adjacent foreign country: Provided, however, That the provisions of this Act shall not apply to the transportation of passengers or property, or to the receiving, delivering, storage, or handling of property wholly within one State and not shipped to or from a foreign country from or to any State or Territory as aforesaid.

"The term 'common carrier' as used in this Act shall include express companies and sleeping-car companies. The term 'railroad,' as used in this Act, shall include all bridges and ferries used or operated in connection with any railroad, and also all the road in use by any corporation operating a railroad, whether owned or operated under a contract, agreement, or lease, and shall also include all switches, spurs, tracks, and terminal facilities of every kind used or necessary in the transportation of the persons or property designated herein, and also all freight depots, yards, and grounds used or necessary in the transportation or delivery of any of said property; and the term 'transportation' shall include cars and other vehicles and all instrumentalities and facilities of shipment or carriage, irrespective of ownership or of any contract, express or implied, for the use thereof and all services in connection with the receipt, delivery, elevation, and transfer in transit, ventilation, refrigeration or icing, storage, and handling of property transported; and it shall be the duty of every carrier subject to the provisions of this Act to provide and furnish such transportation upon reasonable request therefor, and to establish through routes and just and reasonable rates applicable thereto.

"All charges made for any service rendered or to be rendered in the transportation of passengers or property as aforesaid, or in connection therewith, shall be just and reasonable; and every unjust and unreasonable charge for such service or any part thereof is prohibited and declared to be unlawful.

"No common carrier subject to the provisions of this Act, shall, after January first, nineteen hundred and seven, directly or indirectly, issue or give any interstate free ticket, free pass, or free transportation for passengers, except to its employees and their families, its officers, agents, surgeons, physicians, and attoys at law; to ministers of religion, traveling secretaries of

Young Men's Christian Associations, inmates of hospi