The Presidex': recommendation favour of the appoinixvent of an addition: member of the Cabinet, tobe known as the Secretary of Commerce ang Tudustries, will command general concurrence among men who have noted the extraordinary development of American trade within the past five years.
A nation whose annual exports and imports exceed two billion dollars in value every year can find plenty of useful employment for a Cabinet officer whose spe. cial duty it is to safeguard and promote the interests of commerce and labour. present these functions are largely entrusted to the Secretary of the Treasury, who was originally expected only to give his attention to the financial affairs of the Government. As a resut, the Treasury Department is burdened with a vast amount of detail, for which its organisation is il-fitted to cope, and its head is obliged to devote an undue proportion of his time and energy to subjects which are beyond his proper province.
The extension and preservation of our foreign trade are matters imp -rtant enough to justify the constant labour of a separate dep tment, and there are many, questions regarding domestic industries in their relation to the home market which also need Governmental attention. The cost of the proposed new division of the Government would be trifling, and the arguments in behalf of the project are entitled to favourable consideration by Congress.
The President's references on the regulation of trusts are regarded as eminently wise, though perhaps licking in precise recommendations. The journal last quoted says under this head There is nothing this programme.
Nobody pretends that any hardship or injustice is caused y the laws which provide for the supery national banks by the Goverament. The same principle may be fairly applied in the case of the ¢ rporations that receive elastic ud protitabl- charters, often in minor States, for operations which are national in their scope and which directly affect the public prosperity and welfare. These organisations, moreover, are continually selling their stocks and bonds to the public. Huge amounts of capital in the aggre-been invested in their securities tors have a right 10 know what ig done with their funds, and how the concerns which they have entrusted with th-it swings are managed.
The first roynisite, the President justly observes, for dealing with these combinations "is knowledge fall and com knowledge which may be the world." If legal authorities find that Congress un ler the Constitution as it exists does not have the necessary power to impose this publicity, he urges that a Constitutional amendment should he passed which will ce that power. This advice is in no sense jeable. It should be heeded and followed.
The "New York Times" gives an interesting survey of Ameriey's policy. with respect to China, under the title of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.