National.

A great exposition of the manufacturing and other industries of New England is to be conducted by the Boston Chamber of Commerce in Mechanics Building in October, 1911. It will last four weeks, and the total attendance is estimated at three hundred thousand. The purposes are, first, to promote manufacturing and commercial activity in New England; second, to show the people of New England the methods and extent of their manufactures and resources; third, to attract the attention of the whole country to New England's enormous and varied industries; fourth, to bring the employer and workman, merchant and buyer into closer touch with the manufactory and its products; fifth, to stimulate the people of New England, particularly boys and girls, to a realization of the dignity and possibilities of working with the hands, and thus promote industrial education.

The United States department of agriculture is using this year on the national forests over ten tons of tree seed. There are now twenty-four national forest nurseries, with an annual productive capacity of over eight million seedlings. But there are many millions of old burns on the national forests which are waiting to be restocked, and some quicker and cheaper method than the actual planting of nursery-grown trees is urgently needed. Therefore the foresters are making experiments on a large scale with different methods of direct sowing and planting, and most of the seed gathered last year was obtained for this use.

Officers and directors of the Chicago Board of Trade are disturbed, it is said, over the manner in which certain big operators have ignored the board's resolution against the "running of corners in grain," and under repeated urging from the conservative members who are striving to allay the public agitation for the abolition of "exchanges" of all sorts, may conduct a thorough investigation into the July corner of wheat and expel those found guilty.

President Taft has taken the first steps in the plan for bringing about greater business efficiency and economy in the different departments of the Government by sending to Washington four sets of experts, who are to make a preliminary study of the situation and submit a program for carrying forward the work. The President has been given an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars for the purpose of reorganizing departmental methods.

The Federal authorities are almost ready to bring their crowning anti-trust suit against the American Sugar Refining Company. The preparation of the case is virtually completed and it is only a matter of a short time before the issue of monopoly in the sugar trade of the country will be squarely presented and fought out in the courts.

Suits for an injunction and an accounting have been brought in the United States circuit court by the United Shoe Machinery Company against Thomas G. Plant Company and Thomas G. Plant, who have repudiated the shoe machinery leases with the former company and have installed independent "wonder-worker" machines.

The interstate commerce commission, pending an investigation into the reasonableness of the increase of rates on commutation tickets between New York and points in Connecticut on the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad, has ordered the increase, operative June 4, to be suspended.

The "Pilgrim Monument" was dedicated Friday, Aug. 5, at Provincetown, Mass. Addresses were delivered by President Taft, Senator Lodge, Governor Draper, Lieutenant-Governor Frothingham, Charles W. Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard University, and others.

A conference of railroad attorneys, representing practically all the railroad systems of the country, met at Portsmouth, N. H., last week to discuss the railroads bill enacted by the last Congress, and to consider its effect upon railroads engaged in interstate traffic.

The special congressional committee has begun its investigation of the charges of bribery in connection with contracts with the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians, involving a sale of land estimated at thirty million dollars' value.

A total gold coinage of 18,000 double eagles, valued at $360,000, a silver coinage of $217,000, embracing 240,000 ha., dollars and 20,000 quarters, $30,600 in one-cent pieces, constituted the coinage executed at the mints of the United States during July.

Appropriations totaling nearly three million dollars have been granted by the New York board of estimate for public improvements, chief of which is the completion of the easterly basin of Jerome park reservoir.

Guthrie is reestablished as the capital of Oklahoma in practically all respects, following the decision of the state supreme court, after an attempt to establish it at Oklahoma City.

Improvements in the treasury building at Washington to cost one hundred and eighty thousand dollars, are to be made this summer.

It is expected that some postal savings banks will be in operation by Oct. 15.

International.

There is no doubt that the English language is spreading steadily in all directions. In the state of Mysore in southern India, in 1892, the study of English was not permitted in the schools until after the third vernacular standard. Previous to this date English had been taught in many schools from the first class onward. In the next year a change was made, permitting the study of English after the second vernacular standard, and finally, two years ago, the study of English was made compulsory after the second vernacular standard. The same desire for the study of English in the vernacular schools has manifested itself in the state of Baroda.

A section, about one hundred miles long, of the Cape to Cairo railway, extending from Khartoum to Wad Mehani, has now been open to public traffic for six months, during which time the traffic has surpassed all expectations. The takings during the first month's workings amounted to fifty thousand dollars, the produce carried consisting mainly of dhurra, or native corn, gum, and cotton. This is the first portion of the railway to break away from the desert part of the Soudan and to touch the edge of that part of the country which is naturally fertile without being irrigated.

In presenting the budget to Parliament, Sir Joseph Ward, the prime minister of New Zealand, showed that the revenue for the past year is the highest yet recorded, and that the expenditure is below the estimates.

Strict police orders regulating aeroplane flights in the province of Brandenburg, Germany, have been put in force.

President Pedro Montt of Chile and his suite were in Boston last week. They met President Taft at Beverly.

Industrial and Commercial.

The proposed consolidation of cotton mills through the organization of a twenty-million-dollar International Cotton Mills Corporation, is said to be the largest cotton mill combiration ever undertaken in the United States. The combination, while consisting of cotton duck mills, will include cotton yarn and cloth plants. Textile mills, sales and distributing agencies in this country and Canada, which manufacture and sell three thousand varieties of cotton fabrics, are included in the merger. The properties, consolidated, represent twenty-two mills and thirty-five principal brands, owning ten thousand acres of land, part of which is under cotton cultivation, and employing ten thousand hands, with an aggregate annual output valued at approximately eighteen million dollars. Briefly the proposition is one to establish warehouses in all parts of the cotton producing district of this country, as well as in the manufacturing centers, for the storing of the cotton crop, so that instead of selling it from hand to mouth, as has been the practice heretofore, it will be marketed through the entire year when desirable. It is expected that it will take probably five years to put the plan into operation. The American cotton crop is the only cotton crop in the world which is not packed for shipment at the point where it is ginned. It now goes to a compress, pays high rates for insurance, is subject to tremendous wastes in baling and freights, on account of its bulk, and is handled a needless number of times. It is proposed to adopt the Egyptian bale, which is much superior to that used in this country, to compress at the point of ginning, and to effect other economies which will result in the aggregate to a tremendous sum.

The earnings for the year of the General Motors Company of Michigan are twelve million dollars. This amount would be equivalent to six per cent interest on two hundred million dollars. The company has about twenty-five million dollars capital stock outstanding, and it is proposed to increase this at least five to one. This would make the new capitalization not less than one hundred and twenty-five million dollars.

Stockholders of the B. F. Goodrich Company of Akron, O., makers of automobile tires and other rubber goods, will hold a special meeting Aug. 24 to increase the capitalization from ten million to twenty million dollars. Half of the new stock is said to be intended for a stock dividend, while the five million dollars' balance will be sold to finance plant additions contemplated, and also to provide working capital.

The Federal Biscuit Company has been organized. In addition to the eighty independent companies that are to be purchased, fifteen concerns in Canada will come into the combination. The capitalization of thirty million dollars represents the potential idea of the operators of over eighty factories, who have been working together as the Biscuit and Crackers Manufacturing Association.