National.

Postmaster General Meyer, in arguing for the establishment of postal savings banks, notes the fact that fourteen States of the Union have savings bank deposits of over three and a half billions of dollars, or 98.4 per cent, while the remaining thirty-two States have a trifle over seventy million dollars, or 1.6 percent. This condition, he avers, does not give adequate facilities to many people for depositing money in banks and furnishes a convincing reason for affording such facilities through a Government postal savings system. There are in the United States sixty-one thousand post-offices, of which forty thousand already do a money order business and could become depositories for savings.

President Roosevelt is expected to start on his trip to Africa within a fortnight after the inauguration of his successor in office, and will probably be accompanied by his son Kermit, a professor from the Smithsonian Institute, and an officer of the navy. He will reach Mombassa in East Africa in April and spent six months between that point and the province of Uganda, finally reaching Lake Victoria Nyanza, whence his objective point is Entebbe in Central Africa. From there he journeys by boat and on foot to Khartoum, about there thousand miles.

Cordial messages expressing gratification over the visit of the American fleet to Amoy, China, and the remission of the Boxer indemnity by the United States, have been received at the State Department. Both messages, one signed by forty-one public officials, directors, and officers of private enterprises representing twenty provinces, and the other by the former governor of Kiangsu and various prominent citizens of Hangchow, expressed appreciation of the friendly relations existing between the United States and China.

President Eliot of Harvard University has tendered his resignation, which has been accepted, to the Board, of Overseers, to take effect not later than May 19 next. He has been a forceful leader in American educational life. He has served the university forty years, and retires at the age of seventy-five with powers unimpaired and amid universal expression of regret from graduates and undergraduates.

The comparative statement of the Government receipts and expenditures for October, 1908, shows an increase in receipts of $1,000,000 and an increase in expenditures of $7,000,000, as compared with September, 1908. This increase in expenditures is due entirely to the payment to the Post-office Department of $7,000,000 on account of the quarterly deficit in the postal revenues. The total receipts for the month were $49,317,724.

As a result of the investigation and report of the Finance Commission of Boston, indictments were found against six men charged with collusion in bidding on iron work required by the city. They have pleaded guilty, paid their fines, and have made restitution to the city.

The national bank receivers, who met in convention in Washington some time ago, have handed their report to the Comptroller of the Treasury. Among other things, great stress is laid upon the need for economy and judgment in handling the affairs of failed banks.

The tentative budget agreed upon by the New York Board of Estimate to cover expenses for the year 1909 amounts to about one hundred and fifty-seven million dollars. For the current year the amount was fourteen million less.

The "initiative and referendum" has been adopted in Oregon, Maine, South Dakota, Illinois, Montana, and Oklahoma. North Dakota and Missouri vote on it this year.

International.

The Formosan Trunk Railway, which recently was completed, was formally opened last week in the presence of General Prince Kanin of the Japanese army and a large number of officials and specially invited guests. Formosa is now threaded throughout by the railway, which extends over a length of three hundred and thirty-four miles. Sixty-two miles of the completed roadbed were taken over by the Japanese from the Chinese in 1895. Japan built the two hundred and seventy-two miles additional at nearly $2,000,000 less than the estimate, and the sum thus saved will be applied to improvements. A concession to build four hundred and fifty miles of branch lines has been granted to the Formosan Sugar Refining Company, and ninety miles are already completed.

The far-sighted Japanese, foreseeing the result of the destruction of their extensive mountain forests, which are government lands, safeguarded themselves by placing all of these under government control. For twelve hundred years, a longer time than in any other country, the people of Japan have been planting and growing forests. These yield very high financial returns, made possible by the close utilization of every bit of the tree so that scarcely a twig is wasted, and by the improvement of the growth of their forests by carefully conducted thinning and tending. The woods are first thinned at the age of thirteen years, and then every five years after that up to the time of the final harvest, at one hundred and twenty years.

The members of the shipworkers' unions have voted to accept the offer of Sir Christopher Furness of the shipbuilding firm of Furness, Withy & Co., giving them a share in the profits. The majority in favor of the proposition was ten to one. The scheme, which is to be tried experimentally for a year, in its general outlines, is as follows: In place of a certain amount of their wages the men may take out shares in the business. On these an interest of four per cent is guaranteed and an additional dividend when the profits exceed a certain sum.

Within an omnibus ride of the Bank of England in London there are, it is reckoned, quite ten thousand acres of waste land lying vacant. A society has been formed, the Vacant Land Cultivation Society, with the object of obtaining the loan of unused land from public authorities and private owners, and a first-class gardener has been retained to visit the gardeners and give advice.

President Castro of Venezuela has modified one of his decrees issued last August to the extent of permitting the shipment of produce from Parian ports to Trinidad, the vessels returning in ballast. No passengers will be allowed on vessels sailing from these ports to Trinidad, or sailing from Trinidad to Venezuelan ports.

Though the government and private railways of Japan carried 126,000,000 passengers last year, the deaths from accident numbered only nineteen, and the injuries were only three hundred and thirteen. Not a single fatality occurred on the government lines, though 47,500,000 people were carried.

The seventy-fourth anniversary of the birth of the Dowager Empress of China was celebrated on the 3d at Amoy, China, and the event was made the greatest day of the festivities in honor of the visiting American battle-ships under Rear Admiral Emory.

The twelve new torpedo boats under construction for the German navy are to be driven by steam turbines, four different types of which are to be tried.

Industrial and Commercial.

At a meeting last week of the directors of the Pennsylvania Tunnel and Terminal Railroad Company there was awarded to the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company a contract for the electrification of the Pennsylvania terminal in New York and the lines in New Jersey and Long Island connected with it. The initial amount of the apparatus required under this contract will aggregate $5,000,000.

Important railroads have recently been testing pressed steel wheels for cars intended for heavy work. The sample wheels were put to severe tests, both chemically and in service, and in every way showed their superiority over those of the cast steel variety. Their adoption as a standard wheel is considered a certainty.

Ten million dollars in round figures, out of a total of $18,000,000 put up by investors for the bankrupt Chicago and Milwaukee Electric Railway Company, are not accounted for by construction costs, according to reports of certified accountants to the receivers just appointed.

It is estimated that the market value of this year's corp of tobacco in the Connecticut Valley will be nearly $5,000,000.

The total value of pig-iron produced in 1907 in the United States, estimated at $20.59 per ton, was $529,958,000.

General.

The money expended on the present election throughout the country, says the Boston Globe, would be sufficient to put all the unemployed at work, as well as give the poor in many communities the necessaries of life during the coming winter. The millions of dollars put out do assist many individuals besides the successful candidates, yet most of the money is practically wasted. No one can estimate the aggregate amount of cash that all of the thousands of candidates for public office have spent, but it must be many millions.