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.

A few years ago, in order to encourage this industry, some of the Brazilian states—Minas, for example—offered a subsidy for each 50,000 arrobas of cotton grown from selected seed furnished by the state Government, but required that modern machinery be used in its cultivation and that an area not less than 400 hectares be exclusively devoted to that purpose. This state also offered a subsidy to the first cottonseed-oil factory established within its borders, the minimum production to be not less than 100,000 liters of oil.

A radical modification of the doctrine of riparian rights was considered by the state water problems conference in session at San Francisco, Cal., recently. A committee recommended the adoption of a law requiring riparian owners to begin lawsuits to protect their rights within three months after the actual commencement of any work they claim to be an infringement upon their rights. Under the existing law, which is the old English common law governing riparian rights, the riparian owner may sue years after the completion of the work to which he objects. Action is also recommended for a further restriction of the riparian doctrine by an amendment to the present injunction law which shall require a riparian owner to prove actual damage before he can obtain an injunction to prevent some one else from using water. It is contended that the present water rights law has done much to retard the development of the state.

Last week the Senate adopted without debate a resolution by Senator Kenyon, directing the attorney-general, if not incompatible with public interest, to submit to the Senate all reports of investigations made by the department into the Standard Oil Company since the Supreme Court decree of dissolution against that company, and particularly any investigation into gasoline prices. Senator Kenyon had read to the Senate resolutions adopted by the Western Oil Jobbers' Association at St. Louis, petitioning Congress to supplement the Sherman law to make effective the decree of dissolution against the Standard Oil Company, and declaring it to be the sense of the association that the dissolution decree was a failure.

The Government has accepted an offer for the resumption in modified form of the contract for the new port works of Buenos Aires, Argentina, which was suspended following the outbreak of the European war. The work is to be on the basis of the expenditure of $100,000 gold a month. It is understood that this reduced monthly outlay is to continue only so long as the present abnormal economic conditions continue. The value of the work yet to de done in order to complete the contract is about three and a half million pounds sterling, and the government in accepting the present temporary arrangement reserve to themselves the right of requiring compliance with the terms of the original contract when circumstances in their opinion render it feasible and desirable. [662]

The bill for the establishment of a national park service has had a hearing before the House committee on public lands. The bill would place a director, to be under the supervision of the secretary of the interior, in charge of all national parks, national monuments, and reservations. Beautiful parks, it is contended, would attract to the United States increasing tourist travel and trade. It is computed that Switzerland receives $150,000,000 a year from tourists, and France $500,000,000. Canada's income from the same source is second only to that received from field products and minerals

The prediction made a few years ago that the development in power generation would take the form of large stations at the source of the fuel supply, is well illustrated in the program of construction of the West Penn Power Company, which now has a 60,000 kw. power station at Connellsville, Pa., is building a 150,000 kw. station at Wellsburg, W. Va., and plans to build this year a 100,000 kw. plant on the Allegheny River at Freeport, Pa.

An elk and deer refuge in Minnesota will probably be officially designated within a few weeks. This tract, which will cover nearly two hundred square miles, upward of one hundred and twenty thousand acres, is second only to the big Superior National Forest of one million acres. It will be located in Pine County, between the St. Croix and Kettle Rivers, these streams forming the western, castern and southern boundaries.

The Vermont Marble Company's new mammoth lime-kiln at Whipple Hollow, two miles north of West Rutland, Vt., which has been under construction since April, 1915, is being electrified, and will be in operation May 1. The plant, which cost $250,000, will convert 200 tous of stone into 100 tons of lime daily. The kiln itself is 130 feet long and 12 feet in diameter. It will take care of the waste marble accumulations at the various quarries in West Rutland and Proctor.

Peanuts were imported into Argentina in 1913 to the amount of 7,985,169 pounds, of which China supplied 2,884,322 pounds; British possessions, 2,288,534 pounds; France, 1,371,487 pounds; Africa, 973,635 pounds; Dutch possessions, 389,222 pounds, and the United States 82 pounds. In 1914 the total imports amounted to 4,685,235 pounds. Besides this there were under cultivation in Argentina during the season of 1913-14 about 62,963 acres devoted to peanuts.

The Great Lakes Transit Corporation, recently organized with a capital of $20,000,000, has taken formal possession of the thirty-three vessels purchased from the New York Central, Pennsylvania, Erie, Rutland, and other railroads. Among the vessels which have been engaged in lake traffic are three passenger steamers, which cost $1,000,000 each. The combined capacity of the entire fleet is more than one hundred and fifty thousand tons.

Announcement has been made in New York of the organization of the Anthractite Coal Operators' Association, composed of independent operators producing about thirteen million tons of coal annually. Conservation of coal properties, improved methods of production and distribution, and means for safeguarding miners, are mentioned among the objects of the organization.

Manufacturing jewelers who use platinum in their products have just been notified by the United States Government that a large source of supply has been found near the headwaters of the Atrato and San Juan Rivers, Colombia, South America.

Approximately one million dollars will be spent by the Great Northern Railway this year on its New Rockford-Lewiston cut-off across North Dakota and Montana.