Items of Interest April 22, 1916 Issue

Items of Interest

The secretary of the international high commission on uniform commercial laws and practices in the western hemisphere recently made public the final program of subjects to be considered at the meeting at Buenos Aires, Argentina. They are the establishment of the gold standard; bills of exchange, bills of lading, and other instruments of international commerce; uniform classification of merchandise, custom-house duties, consular invoices and certificates, port charges; uniform rules for commercial travelers; further legislation in regard to trade-marks, patents, and copyrights; establishment of uniform postal charges, and uniform commissions on postal money-orders; extension of arbitration as a means of adjusting business disputes; advantages of uniform laws in regard to work and workmen; exploitation of petroleum and other combustible materials in America; need of better means of communication among the American republics; banking facilities, credits, funds for public and private enterprises, establishment of international exchange; telegraph tolls, wireless communication; also laws for improving the conditions for selling goods on credit.

A proposition is under consideration to build a macadam highway across the Isthmus of Panama from Boquete to the Atlantic seaport of Rovalo, and thence to Almirante, which is said to have one of the best harbors south of the United States. The proposed road will be 74.5 miles in length, and will pass through a country which is without paths or trails of any kind. In the opinion of engineers who have gone over the survey, the road when completed will be one of the most picturesque highways in the world. The survey crosses the crest of the mountain range at an altitude of 6000 feet. The country traversed is well watered, for the most part uninhabited, and everywhere exceedingly wild. In the hilly and mountainous parts waterfalls abound, one of which is said to be a sheer drop of 120 feet. The work of construction, it is reported, will commence in April or May. The highway is to be a standard macadam road with an 8 per cent maximum gradient and a minimum curvature of a 20 radius.

A cotton conference is to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at the beginning of May. During the last five years great development has taken place in Brazil in the cultivation of cotton, the bulk of which is produced in the northeastern coastal states of the country, although it can be grown below Parana or in the Amazon Valley. The increase in the cultivated area of cotton has taken place largely in the districts within easy reach of the great cotton mills of the republic.

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