ITEMS OF INTEREST
National.
A letter has been received from Yukio Ozaki, the mayor of Tokio, Japan, in regard to the two thousand cherry-trees which were presented by that city to Washington, and which are now at Seattle, Wash., awaiting shipment. "Cherry-trees are extensively cultivated in this country," he says, "and are the most admired of our flowering trees. There are several hundred different varieties, but for the purpose of this shipment ten of the most representative kinds have been selected, and I beg to assure you that it will remain to the citizens of Tokio a pleasing memory as well as a matter of civic pride to know that their small offering will be permitted to contribute to the advancement of the beautiful capital of the great republic which they all admire." Most of the trees will be set out in Potomac park, along the new drive which skirts the river for a distance of a mile and a half, the remainder will be planted in clusters in the various parks of the city.
More than twenty-five million deposit accounts are carried on the books of the banks of all classes of the United States and its insular possessions, according to statements contained in the annual report of the comptroller of the currency. Banks in the New England states held, in round amount, $88,300,000 in actual cash, those in the Eastern states $716,200,000, in the Southern states $105,800,000, in the middle Western states $373,400,000, in the Western states $71,000,000, in the Pacific states $89,600,000, and the banks of the island possesions $7,700,000.
Arbuckle Brothers, the strongest competitors of the American Sugar Refining Company, paid into the United States treasury last week $695,573.19 in reliquidation of back duties following the disclosure of irregularities in the weighing of sugar cargoes on the docks. This action does not affect the criminal standing of the officers of the company. It is reported that the American Sugar Refining Company is ready to pay $700,000 of evaded duties.
The intention on the part of Senator Crawford of South Dakota to press the commerce and labor department for a report on the increased priccs in the cost of living, even to the extent of presenting a resolution in Congress to bring forth the desired information, has aroused interest throughout the country. There is a suspicion abroad that monopolistic control of commodities is unduly affecting the supply.
Legislation to create a department of the Government which would do for the whole country what the bureau of corporations has been doing in specific instances, and compel complete publicity in the management of interstate corporations, is one of the leading recommendations contained in the annual report of Secretary of Commerce and Labor Charles Nagel.
National aid for permanent roads, a system of national highways connecting the capitals of the various states and of state highways connecting the various county seats, use of Federal prisoners for building roads, and the establishment of road-making on a strictly business basis, are some of the suggestions made at the sessions of the tenth national good roads convention at Topeka, Kan.
Four hundred thousand dollars, in the judgment of Secretary Wilson of the department of agriculture, will be necessary to administer properly the twenty-five million acres of public lands added to the national forests by President Roosevelt during the closing weeks of his administration. The bulk of these lands is in Alaska.
The declaration relative to the laws of maritime war, embodied in sixty-four rules, has been made public by the Senate. This declaration was signed by the delegates of the United States to the international naval conference held in London, Eng., last winter, which dealt with ten major topics, unanimity being secured on eight.
A bill has been introduced in the House which provides that the President, Vice-President, senators and representatives, and party committees shall file statements of their campaign expenditures, and that failure to comply shall be punishable by imprisonment of not less than six months and removal from office.
The United States Government has not yet called upon Cuba to reimburse it for the five or six million dollars of expense incurred by the military occupation of the island, but the claim will be pressed whenever it seems that the Cuban treasury can stand such a draft.
In a report by the war department to the House, the eight-million-dollar project for a canal to connect Lake Superior and the Mississippi river by way of St. Croix river is pronounced commercially impracticable and inadvisable, though practicable from an engineering point of view.
A bill requiring common carriers engaged in interstate and foreign commerce to make full reports monthly to the interstate commerce commission of all accidents, and authorizing the commission to investigate such accidents, has been passed by the House.
No action respecting a gypsy and brown tail moth appropriation will be taken by the committee on agriculture until after the holidays. Secretary Wilson has recommended an appropriation of three hundred thousand dollars.
As a result of the prosecution of the sugarweighing frauds in New York city, there is now a confident expectation that indictments will be found against officials "higher up."
President Taft has sent to the Senate the name of Horace H. Lurton, a native of Tennessee, in nomination for associate justice of the United States supreme court.
The postmaster-general is determined to put a stop to the abuse of the franking privileges by members of Congress.
International.
The general assembly of the International Institute of Agriculture, numbering more than one hundred delegates and representing forty-six states and colonies, met in Rome last week. Of the objects to be undertaken by this body, two were deemed of supreme importance, and constituted the chief aims of its promoters. These were : To collect, study, and publish as promptly as possible statistical, technical, and economic information concerning farming, the commerce in agricultural products, and the prices prevailing in the various markets; to communicate, as quickly as possible, all such information to the parties interested. The object of the aims is to prevent the evils which arise from speculation in agricultural products.
The British Congo sections of the Cape-to-Cairo Railway have been formally opened and linked up. This completes a continuous British line of 2,147 miles from Cape Town. The section now opened is 134 miles from the chartered company's terminus at Broken Hill to the southern frontier of the Congo Independent State. Work is already in progress across the frontier on 160 miles of Congo line into Kantanga, which it is expected will be completed in the autumn of 1910.
Another telephone switchboard order from the Far East has been placed with an American firm of manufacturers. The Japanese department of communications is the purchaser, the equipment being used to extend the service in the capital city of Tokio. The Chinese government recently installed two modern telephone exchanges in the city of Peking.
The first railway to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific coast of South America between Buenos Aires and Valparaiso will probably be completed next year. The tunnel through the Andes, which will abolish the gap of fifteen miles that now exists, has been broken through, and it should be possible to run a train through by the end of March.
The estimates for the ensuing fiscal year in Canada provide for an expenditure of $2,358,700 upon the canals. Fifteen canals are to be affected by the work outlined in the year's estimates, nearly all of which are directly connected with the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence river route.
In the Egyptian budget for 1910 the revenue is put down at £15,350,000 and the expenditure, ordinary at £14,088,000 and special at £1,062,000, leaving a surplus of £200,000. There is a gradual improvement in the resources of the Sudan.
China is unobtrusively but extensively giving up its archaic system of education and adopting that of the western world.
Industrial and Commercial.
The Vulcan Match Company of Sweden has just completed negotiations with the Barking district council near London, for the acquisition of some acres of land upon which they intend to build a factory that will give employment to more than one thousand East London workers.
Plans for a subway around New York city, estimated to cost one hundred and thirty million dollars, have been submitted to the public service commission and are creating considerable interest among citizens and officials. The belief is expressed that the Pennsylvania railroad is back of the proposition.
Imports of paper and products into the United States have increased from $3,000,000 in 1899 to $12,000,000 in 1909, while exports of paper and manufactures thereof increased from $5,500,000 in 1899 to practically $8,000,000 in 1909.
In a report just received by the state department it is disclosed that the total American investments in Canada now reach the sum of $226,800,000.
A company capitalized at five hundred thousand dollars has been organized to develop extensive coal-fields in the Province of Alberta.
The United States in 1908 turned out twenty-seven per cent of the entire world's output of lead.
