National.

The membership of the commission authorized by Congress to make an investigation of control of stock and bond issues by concerns engaged in interstate commerce, as announced, is composed of President Arthur Hadley of Yale, chairman; Frederic N. Judson of St. Louis, Frederick Strauss of New York, Walter L. Fisher of Chicago, and Prof. B. H. Meyer, who occupies the chair of political economy in the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The commission will thus be composed of two members of college faculties, two lawyers, and one banker, Mr. Strauss, who is also an economist. Both President Hadley and Professor Meyer have written extensively on economic and railroad subjects. Professor Meyer is chairman of the Wisconsin railway commission and is familiar with the long struggle in that state for the regulation of railroad service. He has been in the employ of the interstate commerce commission at Washington in charge of such valuation of railroad properties as the commission has undertaken, and has also been a special agent of the census bureau recently to furnish statistics on railway valuation. Both the lawyer members of the commission are well-known men. Mr. Judson, a graduate of Yale, has written books on law taxation and interstate commerce. Mr. Fisher is an expert in traction matters. He represented Chicago in the settlement of the traction disputes a few years ago, and successfully brought about the arrangements by which several street railway companies exchanged their securities for a new issue, so that the roads could be consolidated and the profits of operation be shared with the city. He is a vice-president of the national conservation commission.

The cloakmakers' strike in New York city, one of the greatest industrial disturbances in the history of American labor, has been settled. Seventy thousand garment workers, who have been idle for nine weeks, will shortly return to work. The industrial loss to employers and employees has run high into the millions. In loss of wages alone the total has been estimated at more than ten million dollars, while the loss to manufacturers, jobbers, and retailers the country over has been computed at ten times that amount. Points won by strikers are an end of sweat-shops and "preferential union shop," wherein all union standards and requirements as to wages, time, etc., shall be maintained; the point won by employers is an open shop with freedom of selection of employees when necessary skilled union labor is not available.

The public service commission for the first district, New York state, is now advertising for bids for the construction of an entirely new subway system, which is to link together the three most important boroughs of Greater New York and is to cost in its entirety not less than one hundred and twenty million dollars. It is hoped that within five years the triborough system will be completed. The proposed system will include about forty-one miles of road and its capacity will be one million passengers per day. It will connect the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx by a continuous line, which if operated as one system will enable a passenger to ride from Pelham Bay Park at the northerly limits of the Bronx down through Manhattan, over the East river, through Brooklyn, and out to Coney Island.

The third annual national good roads convention is to be held in St. Louis, Mo., Sept. 26 to 29. The change of dates from October to September, was brought about by the insistent desire on the part of the American contracting engineers to hold their annual meeting at the same time and to work jointly with the national good roads convention. Officers of nine national bodies are represented on the convention committee. The National Grange includes over one million farmers. The Farmers' National and Cooperative Union possesses a total membership exceeding two million. The farmers' union has not participated in previous conventions.

President Taft is contemplating, and probably will issue soon after his return to Washington from Beverly, an executive order putting all assistant postmasters and permanent clerks at money-order postoffices under civil service. Postmaster-General Hitchcock recommended this step.

The party of professors and students from the University of Commerce, at Cologne, Germany, who have been making a tour of the United States during the past six weeks, sailed for home last week.

Collector Loeb of the port of New York, from April 1, 1909, to March 31, 1910, has collected in fines assessed upon would-be smugglers and in penalties for forfeitures $2,387,969,86.

The population of New York city, according to the official count of the returns of the thirteenth census, is 4,766,883, as compared with 3,437,202 in 1900 and 2,507,414 in 1890.

International.

The United States wins on five points out of the seven submitted to the international court at The Hague in the Newfoundland fisheries dispute with Great Britain. Great Britain wins points one and five. On point five the court upholds the British contention that the three-mile limit must be measured from a line connecting headlands. Question one, the other question decided in England's favor, concerned England's sovereign power to make regulations not in contravention of United States treaty rights of 1818. The disputed Newfoundland regulations were referred to an expert commissioner to be appointed by The Hague tribunal. Future regulations must be submitted to a permanent fishery commission, to which the United States shall have the power to protest.

According to the annual report of the surveyor-general of Australia the 421,800 acres of land which have been surveyed are not sufficient to meet the demands. The government has purchased 62,790 acres for closer settlement. Noteworthy success has followed the subdivision of big estates, and there are now fifteen hundred persons on repurchased lands. The amount of territory now under survey amounts to one million acres, the greater portion of it being agricultural land.

A trust known as the "Single Service Packing Corporation of America" is being organized to buy and control all the patents covering the machinery used in the manufacture of "paper" and "other" containers, including a perfected paper milk bottle, and then to "lease" instead of "sell" the machines constructed under such patents to the consumer of packages.

So successful has been the telephone cable recently laid between Kent, Eng., and Gris Nez, France, that a second one is to be laid. Each cable carries four wires, giving two complete circuits. The charge at present for talking during a space of three minutes from London to Paris is $1.92, and it is expected that this charge will eventually be reduced.

Industrial and Commercial.

According to a London despatch, duralumin is a new alloy of aluminum discovered by the head chemist at Vicker's Sons and Maxim's Works, Barrow. The alloy is described as a little heavier than pure aluminum, but as strong as steel. The firm is building new works at Birmingham for the purpose of manufacturing the metal, which has been patented throughout the world. The alloy can be rolled, drawn, stamped, extended, or forged at suitable temperatures and is much less easily corroded than other aluminum alloys, and possesses such valuable properties that the firm thinks there is bound to be a large demand for it. The manufacturers hope to begin work on a commercial scale in October. It is only one third the weight of brass and the purposes for which it can be used are, it is said, practically unlimited.

According to the Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin, conditions in the Portland cement industry in general give promise of some important developments in the next six months. The gigantic cement "trust," organized little more than a year and a half ago, appears to be nearing its end. On Feb. I next the original organization agreement of the Association of Licensed Cement Manufacturers, as the trust styles itself, will expire by limitation, and those best posted on the state of affairs say it is practically a certainty that it will not be renewed.

The Wonder Worker Shoe Machinery Company, a rival of the United Shoe Machinery Company, having an authorized capital of ten million dollars, and with Montclair and Bloomfield men as incorporators, has filed articles of incorporation in the office of the clerk of Essex county, New Jersey.

The Western Electric Company in a single year uses upward of a ton of platinum for telephone apparatus. As platinum costs thirty per cent more than pure gold, it is evident that this expensive metal would not be used so extensively unless results justified it.

The Chalmers Motor Company of Detroit, Mich., has declared a cash divident of thirty per cent and a stock divident of one thousand per cent, the capital stock increase involved being from three hundred thousand dollars to three million dollars.

What is said to be the largest single coking coal contract ever let in the East has just been obtained by the Davis Coal & Coke Company from the Bethlehem Steel Company. It runs for twenty years, and exceeds sixty million dollars in value.

The largest building in the world ever built at one time, the Pennsylvania railroad station in New York, has just been completed and declared officially open. Train service was inaugurated on Sept. 8.

The consolidation of the largest cab and taxicab interests of New York has been completed by the formation of the Cab & Taxi Company of New York, with a capital stock of five million dollars.

Up to the present 1,148,316 cases of fruit of various descriptions have been shipped from Hobart, Tasmania, to Australia and other countries.

A half-million-dollar electrical switchboard will control every switch in the Pennsylvania railroad's great new yards at New York.