National.

Seventeen million acres of forest lands have been added to the forest reserves of the United States by proclamations issued by President Roosevelt, made public a few days ago. Thirty–two forest reservations are created or increased in area by these proclamations. There was under consideration by Congress a proposal to change the law so as to require Congressional action upon the establishing of additional forest reserves. The President in a memorandum to the public bearing on the subject said, "If I did not act, reserves which I consider very important for the interests of the United States would be wholly or in part dissipated before Congress has an opportunity again to consider the matter; while under the action which I propose to take they will be preserved; and if Congress differs from me in this opinion it will have full opportunity in the future to take such position as it may desire anent the discontinuance of the reserves, by affirmative action, taken with the fullest opportunity for considering the subject by itself and on its own merits. ... Failure on my part to sign these proclamations would mean that immense tracts of valuable timber would fall into the hands of the lumber syndicate before Congress has an opportunity to act, whereas, the creation of the reserves means that this timber will be kept in the interest of the home–maker; for our entire purpose in this forest reserve policy is to keep the land for the benefit of the actual settler and home–maker, to further his interests in every way and, while using the natural resources of the country for the benefit of the present generation also to use them in such manner as to keep them unimpaired for the benefit of the children now growing up to inherit the land."

Consul General Amos P. Wilder reports that a new flour mill completed in Hongknog is the first one in South China. In Shanghai there are some five flour mills, with individual capacities running up to six hundred barrels a day, in the main owned and operated by Chinese, although one is run by Germans. These use wheat from the Soochow Creek district and even as far as Hankow, some six hundred miles. Recently, however, a cargo of nineteen thousand bags of Tacoma wheat was received by one of these mills. They have been very prosperous for three years past—some of them having been in operation for six years—but during the past year there has been a big shortage in native–grown wheat, and the high rate of exchange at present seriously affects them. The Hongkong mill is located on Junk Bay, some hours' ride by launch from the center of the city of Victoria (popularly called Hongkong), on the Kowloon (mainland) side. The moving spirit in the Hongkong project is a Canadian, who for a dozen years has done a very large business in this section for the Portland Milling Company. Some years he has sold nearly two million sacks of flour, of forty–nine pounds each. He was one of the first to introduce the cheaper grades of American flour.

The two–cent–per–mile–fare bill, recently passed by the Legislature of Nebraska, has become a law. The railroads in that State, including the Union Pacific, the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy, the Chicago and Northwestern, the Missouri Pacific, and the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific, have issued circulars absolutely abolishing all classes of reduced fares, such as clergy permits, reduced rate orders, charitable rates, etc. The circular says that it is the purpose to make the two–cent rate the only possible rate to apply on Nebraska passenger fares.

It is said that a bill will be introduced into the Tennessee Legislature seeking to regulate the charges made by the telephone companies operating in that State. Under the proposed plan charges will be regulated by the number of subscribers to each exchange. To this end the bill will divide the exchanges into five or six classes, and will seek to make the minimum rate smaller in proportion to the larger number of 'phones to the exchange.

The steamer Prinz Joachim with delegations representing the Commercial Clubs of Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, has touched at Porto Rico, the Panama Canal Zone, and Jamaica. A number of days was spent at Panama in examining the work at the Canal.

The eighteen–hour trains between Chicago and New York may be abolished, it is said, because excess fares are illegal under the new two–cents–a–mile law enacted by various States.

The public debt at the close of business Feb. 28, 1907, less cash in the Treasury, amounted to $920,644,854, a decrease of $6,797,352 as compared with Feb. 1, 1906.

The Ship Subsidy Bill has again failed of passage by Congress.

Foreign.

Russia's second Parliament was opened March 5 without disorder. Immediately after the members were sworn in the Opposition took control of the Chamber, electing as President Feodor Golovin, a Constitutional Democrat, and a man of character. There are indications that this Douma will demand virtually all that the first Douma asked, but with more moderation.

Sir Henry Campbell–Bannerman, the British Premier, has published in the Nation an article in which he indicates his reasons for holding as baseless those objections brought up at home and abroad to raising the question of the limitation of armaments at the approaching Peace Conference at The Hague. He contends that the original Hague meeting was convened for the very purpose of discussing this question, and, because of the delicate and complex nature of the question, failed to reach an agreement.

Lord Newton has introduced in the English House of Lords a bill proposing the reconstitution of the House on a partly elective basis. He seeks to remove the excessive preponderance of hereditary peers by stipulating qualification through service to the State or previous election, and provides for a certain number of elected peers and for the nomination by the Crown of life peers, these not to exceed one hundred in number.

The National Assembly of Persia has agreed to the proposal that the new National Bank of Persia advance the Government the sum of $3,900,000 to be used for the payment of the army, to meet the cost of diplomatic missions, to pay the expenses of the court, and for the purpose of refunding private bank advances.

A system of irrigation which will cover nearly one hundred thousand acres of land and will cost about $2,000,000 to construct, is being laid out by engineers of the Sinaloa Land and Water Company in the valley of the Culiacan River in Mexico. It will be one of the largest systems of irrigation in Mexico.

The China Association is co–operating with the Chamber of Commerce and American, German, and Japanese Associations in arranging the International Exposition to be held in Shanghai in the autumn of 1008. Exhibits from Europe and the United States will be invited.

The cost of placing the scheme of workmen's pensions into operation in France is estimated between eighty and ninety million dollars.

A railway tunnel will soon undermine the great wall of China.

Industrial and Commercial.

The Standard Reduction Company of Chicago is erecting the largest fullers' earth plant in the world at Hurricane, Ala., where the clay deposit on one thousand acres is found to contain the standard chemicals necessary to produce the desired article. The daily capacity of the new enterprise will be one car–load.

The salaries of all Postal Telegraph Cable Company operators, traffic chiefs, wire chiefs, assistant chief operators, chief operators, and managers were increased ten per cent on March 1, and this increase applies to all offices of the company in the United States.

Several sponge farms, all of which are paying concerns, are to be found in the Mediterranean. Until recently sponges have been simply collected from the sea floor, where they have flourished in a wild state, but of late years they have, like oysters, been cultivated.

The leather industry contributed $150,000,000 to the foreign commerce of the United States in the year 1906, against less than $55,000,000 a decade earlier.

The manufacture of wire fence by the nine plants in Michigan last year amounted to 4,581,280 tons.

General.

The highest price ever paid in this country for a painting, $65,000, was received recently at New York for a Troyon. The picture was "Le Retour a la Ferme," a canvas, fifty–three inches in height by thirty–eight in width. It depicted two cows on their way to pasture, one white and the other dark brown, two sheep, and a vista of green pasture land.

In the Vatican at Rome is the largest topaz in the world. It weighs seven pounds and has carvings upon it that occupied three Neapolitan lapidaries sixty–one years.

In Santa Rosa, Cal., is a church with a seating capacity of two hundred, which is built entirely of timber sawed out of a single redwood tree.

Sixty years ago there were only one hundred and fifty thousand children at school in India. Now there are four million.