supreme importance. Many foreign countries have governmental or semipublic organizations for the purpose of taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by these expositions, which, being devoted to special industries, are of greater practical value to manufacturers than the great universal expositions. Such expositions will be held. this and the coming year in Europe, as well as in countries of South America.

There is no permanent organization in this country to look after the interests of American manufacturers and exporters at such foreign expositions, yet the leading commercial countries in Europe have every facility in this respect, and keep a sharp lookout for every advantage offered to promote the interests of their respective countries. The Department of Commerce and Labor is usually informed in advance as to the opening of such expositions, and through a representative body like the National Council of Commerce could assist industries in the United States in securing proper representation for them, not only by securing adequate allotments of space, but by taking necessary steps to secure publicity in the foreign countries in which expositions may be held that would bring the industries in touch with foreign buyers. The National Council will have an opportunity to work out with the officials of the Department some scheme for a permanent organization that will look after this special work in the future.

Another instance is the appointment of special agents abroad for the study of foreign markets. While the Bureau of Manufactures is now doing all it can to study foreign markets for the most important exporting industries of this country, it would welcome any additional assistance that the representatives of the American industries could give it by practical suggestions on the subject. In this relation it may be stated that in the appointment of special agents the policy of the Department has been to consult the commercial and industrial interests to be served and to appoint the persons nominated by them, the condition precedent being that nominees shall be approved experts. Another important field for cooperation between the Department and the business community is in the matter of negotiations with foreign countries relating to commercial questions. This includes not only negotiations of commercial treaties, but also numerous minor yet important questions which arise in the daily transaction of business with foreign countries in which American interests find themselves aggrieved and desire the protection of the Government. While the Government has its officers to look after these matters in this and in other countries, yet these officials, not being themselves engaged in business, can not have the insight into matters that comes from an intimate contact with foreign conditions to people whose personal interests are directly affected thereby.

It is important that the Government should be informed as fully and as early as possible as to the needs of American manufacturers and exporters in foreign markets; as to grievances which exporting interests may have in connection with the treatment accorded their products by foreign customs officials; as to restrictions to which they are subjected; as to any possible discriminations against them, and any other matters which may properly be taken up by the Government in its negotiations with foreign countries.

The Department has taken the first steps to bring about this helpful relation between the Government and the business community. It now remains for the business world to grasp the proffered hand and to do its share in making the new organization a success.

BUREAU OF THE CENSUS.

STATUS OF INTERCENSAL INVESTIGATIONS.

During the year the Bureau of the Census has completed the quinquennial report on manufactures, the report on marriage and divorce covering the forty-year period 1867-1906, and the decennial report on transportation by water. The decennial reports on religious bodies and the express business are rapidly approaching completion. The four annual reports assigned to the Bureau-statistics of mortality for registration areas; statistics of cities of 30,000 population and over; and the statistics of cotton production as returned by the ginners, and of cotton distribution and consumption-were completed this year at dates somewhat earlier than ever before. The field work for the quinquennial report on the electrical industries was finished in August; the compilation of the schedules is now in progress, and the report will be ready for the printer early in the year 1909.

SALES OF PUBLIC DOCUMENTS.

The Bureau has completed the republication of the names of the heads of families, as returned at the First Federal Census, taken in the year 1790, covering the twelve States of Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, North and South Carolina, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia-all the States whose First Census records were not destroyed when the British captured Washington in 1814. The names for each State are published in a separate pamphlet, copies of which are sold for $1, in accordance with the act of Congress authorizing the republication. The Director reports that over $7,000 has already been turned over to the Treasury from the sale of these pamphlets, and the demand for them promises to continue. The success of this experiment in the sale of a series of government documents leads me to believe that the plan can be advantageously extended to other official publications-perhaps to all Census reports, as the Director has repeatedly recommended, as well as to the technical reports of the scientific bureaus of the Department. It would be following the precedent of a number of the European Governments. The waste and extravagance which have long marked the printing for the Government can never be eradicated until the bulk of its publications are sold at a price fixed in accordance with the actual cost of production, after the volume is ready for the press. Under this plan the circulation of this class of publications would be confined to the persons who have actual need for them, and printing bills would be correspond

ingly reduced. The sale of certain technical publications of other departments is already authorized by law, and I recommend that the Secretary of Commerce and Labor be authorized in his discretion to affix a price to similar publications of this Department.

OFFICIAL REGISTER OF THE UNITED STATES.

The Bureau published the Official Register of the United States prior to December 1 last, the date fixed by law, at a total cost for printing and binding of but $25,657, as compared with $70,000, the cost of printing the last previous issue. The radical changes effected in the Official Register were imperative, because the publication in its old form had become unwieldy, the weight of the two volumes amounting to 30 pounds. In its new form it appears to command the approval of those who make the most use of it. Following the completion of the Register, the Bureau of the Census compiled and published, by my direction, a useful register of the Department of Commerce and Labor. It also compiled a second bulletin containing the statistics of the executive civil service of the United States. At the request of the Civil Service Committees of Congress, the Bureau is now using the data collected for this bulletin to determine with exactness certain details of the plan, recommended by the Committee on Department Methods, for dealing with the troublesome question of clerical superannuation.

WORK IN PROGRESS.

With the completion of the reports above enumerated, all the investigations assigned by law to the Bureau of the Census during the intercensal period will have been disposed of, except the census of the fishery industries and the report on savings institutions. Preparatory work upon both these reports is now under way, and they will occupy a portion of the clerical force during the remainder of the current year. Most of the clerks are now engaged, however, in preparatory work for the Thirteenth Census of the United States or in making special statistical compilations undertaken by the Bureau at the order of the President or of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor. Among the special compilations are a report on the utilized water powers of the United States, for the use of the Commission for the Conservation of National Resources; a report on the character and value of state, county, and municipal securities, undertaken at the request of the Secretary of the Treasury for use in the administration. of the new law for the emergency currency; and a report on the annual lumber cut of the United States, compiled in collaboration with the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture.

The special work above indicated is based largely upon data and records already in the Census Bureau, and the ability of the office

to handle these statistics for other departments and for Congress has avoided much duplication of statistical work. It indicates a function of the Bureau which is likely to develop from year to year.

TABULATION AND PUBLICATION OF CUBAN CENSUS.

In December, 1907, the President directed the Bureau of the Census to tabulate and publish the census of the population of the Republic of Cuba, taken in that year under the supervision of the War Department. This order was made on the representation that no facilities existed in Cuba for this class of work, and all the expenses incurred have been paid from the Cuban treasury. The schedules reached the Census Office about May 1, and 136 temporary clerks were appointed to punch the cards, operate the tabulating machines, and complete the tables, under the supervision of experienced clerks detailed from the regular clerical force of the Bureau. The work was substantially completed October 1, at a cost to the Cuban Govern'ment of $42,655, or about 2 cents per capita, which is less than the per capita cost of tabulating the last census of Cuba, when the work was done under private contract, at a cost of 3.5 cents per capita. The work of the Bureau was entirely satisfactory to the authorities in charge, and was a valuable experience for the Bureau in two ways. It permitted a practical test of the proposed plan of piece-price payment for mechanical work at the Thirteenth Census, the results of which test were eminently satisfactory. It demonstrated that in the punching of cards and the operating of tabulating machines differing degrees of aptitude and industry may be so compensated that each operator may be paid in accordance with product, none receiving less than a fair day's wage while the especially apt may receive a much larger compensation than would otherwise be possible, the total cost of the work being at the same time materially reduced.

The Cuban census also permitted a thorough testing of several of the new designs of tabulating apparatus invented in the office for use at the Thirteenth Census. The results exceeded the most sanguine expectations of the Bureau. The new machines did their work perfectly, and indicated that they are adapted to handle the great work of a decennial enumeration more quickly and more economically than any mechanisms hitherto employed for this purpose. The Annual Report of the Director gives full details regarding these experiments, and indicates that a large saving in the cost of the next and subsequent censuses will result from their successful culmination.

MODIFICATION OF CENSUS LEGISLATION.

During the next fiscal year the Census Office must complete the preparations for the thirteenth decennial enumeration of the population and resources of the United States, and actually make the