The selling by manufacturers of large consignments direct to chain stores, mail order houses, and department stores at prices normally charged the wholesaler and at which the manufacturer cannot profitably sell the individual small retailer, was denounced as unfair competition, according to a committee report to the recent "Liberty Convention" of the National Wholesale Grocers' Association at Chicago. The report asserts: "The tendency to eliminate the small man is, therefore, toward monopoly, and under the present conditions this tendency will soon become an accelerated movement which will sweep thousands of American retailers to eventual ruin, at the same time injuring the jobber, who is their only practical source of supply for other than locally produced goods. It now remains to be seen whether the Government will permit a far more gigantic monopoly than any which have preceded it to be built up with ever increasing rapidity and to obtain control of the first necessity of life."

A bank, known as the Industrial and Commercial Bank (Ltd.), has been organized under the laws of Hongkong with a capital of $1,000,000 Hongkong currency. The plans of the company contemplate ultimate capitalization of as much as $50,000,000 and the establishing of branches and agencies all over China, with a view of affording Chinese commerce and industry modern banking facilities, which are lacking in interior districts at present. The enterprise is being promoted by Chinese who have had American university and commercial training. To a considerable extent the capital of the new concern has been raised by popular subscription.

The most important new industry developed in Venice, Italy, the past year is that of spinning glass for commercial uses. The spun glass is marketed in three forms,—hanks of spun glass thread of straight fiber, called cotone di vetro (glass cotton), masses of spun glass curled fiber, called lano di vetro (glass wool), and either of the above qualities pressed into sheets or pads from one quarter to one half inch in thickness and resembling white felt pads. At present this product is used principally for insulation, and especially for making seperators for accumulators of electricity; but the glass wool would serve admirably for making artificial hair, wigs, perukes, dolls' hair, and for other purposes, and in the pad form it serves as a hygienic filter.

The legislature of California at its last session passed an act providing for the purchase by the state of 10,000 acres of improved land, and its subdivision into small tracts upon which those of small means may settle under favorable conditions, it having been determined by thorough investigation that, because of the high price of land and for other reasons, successful farming has come to be a matter of large investment, and that the whole agricultural situation has therefore come to be attended with unsound social and economic conditions.

The 10,000 acres will be purchased by the state, buildings will be constructed thereon, and the land laid out in small tracts and sold at a reasonable price on easy terms. Purchasers are given forty years within which to repay loans.

Until the recent discovery of an apparently high grade of coal in the Patagonian region it was supposed that Argentina lacked commercially valuable deposits. In La Rioja, San Juan, and Mendoza the mines are isolated and their output is of low quality, containing a large proportion of ash. Samples of the coal recently found at Santa Cruz, however, indicate contents of volatile matter, fixed coal, and ash that will bear comparison with the best European fuel. In the chalky ground where this was extracted the seam was several meters thick; and if the deposits are of sufficient size their exploitation will not be handicapped by difficulty of transport, for the cordillera is not far from the Atlantic coast and the seams may extend even farther in that direction.

Kansas on July 1 adopted the "manager" plan for handling her institutions. This will do away with many boards. The institutions which come under the new board include the University of Kansas, Lawrence; Agricultural College, Manhattan; Normal School, Emporia; Western Normal School, Hays; Pittsburg Manual Training Normal School, Pittsburg; State Penitentiary, Lansing; Reformatory for Young Men, Hutchinson; Industrial School for Boys, Topeka; Industrial School for Girls, Beloit; Orphans Home, Atchison; Industrial and Education Institute, Topeka (for negroes); Western University, Quindaro (for negroes), and eight other institutions.

A bill to bring about more uniformity in the incorporation of limited companies (corporations) has recently had its second reading in the Ottawa House of Commons. At present in Canada incorporation can be had by letters patent or by registration. The result is much confusion and uncertainty as to the rights and powers in one province, of a corporation incorporated by another province, or even incorporated under the prevailing Dominion companies.

The Horticultural Club of Trinidad, West Indies, has arranged to have loaves of bread baked from banana flour prepared at local bakeries and offered for sale in order that the people may have an opportunity to know that a most palatable bread can be made from banana flour. At a recent meeting of this club samples of banana flour and bread were exhibited. The process of making the flour is as follows: Full grown green bananas should be selected. Peel, slice, and dry quickly, preferably on a galvanized sheet, then grind in an ordinary corn mill. From sixty-three pounds of green bananas sixteen and a half pounds of flour can be obtained. The bread is made from two parts of banana flour and one part of wheat flour.

There were 112 concerns in the United States in 1916 engaged in the manufacture of 262,558,661 pounds of oil from peanuts, mustard seed, kapok seek, rape seed, sunflower seed, soya beans, walnuts, corn, copra, palm kernels, and olives. The movement to grow soya beans, peanuts, and other oil bearing seeds and nuts other than cottonseed for the manufacture of oil has received a great impetus, and there will probably be several hundred establishments engaged in crushing the crops grown in 1917.

Arrangements are being made to place a tablet upon Chawton Cottage, near Alton, Hants, England, where all the works of Jane Austen were written. The event will take place on July 18, which marks the centenary of her passing away. William D. Howells is one of the American representatives of the committee in charge of this work.

Preliminary statistics issued by the Bureau of the Census give the quantity of cottonseed received at mills in the United States during the period from Aug. 1, 1916, to May 31, 1917, as 4,461,402 tons, the amount crushed during the period as 4,369,760 tons, and the amount on hand at the mills on May 31 as 105,971 tons.

Negroes in the United States, numbering 10,000,000, have a taxable wealth of about $500,000,000, according to the secretary of the National Negro Business League, who made public the figures in a recent appeal to the race for the purchase of Liberty bonds.

Exports of mine products from Venezuela for the first half of 1916 included 732 kilos of gold dust, valued at $362,484; 638 kilos of gold bricks, $326,186; 1600 tons of magnesite, $3088; 8435 tons of copper ore, $184,532; and 16,686 tons of asphalt, $112,631.

According to a bulletin just issued by the Canton Chamber of Commerce for the year ended April 30, exports from that Chinese port, in bales of 112 pounds, were: of raw silk, 51971; of waste silk, 31,546; of pierced cocoons, 6951.

The government of the city of New York under the administration of a mayor, a board of directors, and a city manager, is proposed in a report submitted to Mayor Mitchel by Henry Bruere, former city chamberlain.

The woodland areas of South Africa were formerly of wide extent, but have been greatly reduced through cutting, the clearing of land, and by fires, until now the principal acreage is in the Government reservations.

The wheat acreage in India is reported as 32,962,000 acres, an increase of 9 per cent over the figures for this time last year. The total yield is estimated at 9,929,000 tons, or an increase of 17 per cent.

The production of olives in Spain during 1916 amounted to 1,146,599 metric tons of 2204.6 pounds each. Of the 1916 crop 1,110,153 tons of olives went to the oil presses, yielding 307,115 tons of oil.

A Dublin publication gives the number of emigrants embarking at Irish ports during 1916, with the intention of settling permanently elsewhere, as 7366, the smallest number ever recorded.