618 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 590. 



6. The duplications in the value of 

 products are eliminated in the census re- 

 ports and either the net or gross value can 

 be used. 



7. The average wages should not be as- 

 certained by dividing the total wages by 

 the average number. 



8. The number of wage-earners shown in 

 the statistics of manufactures as employed 

 in the difPerent branches of industry can 

 not agree with the number given in the 

 statistics of population by occupations. 



Currency Reform and Postal Savings Sys- 

 tem: Dr. M. Pietrzycki, Dayton, Wash. 

 It is proposed to create a special depart- 

 ment of the government under the title, 

 'The Bank of the United States,' with 

 powers and duties as follows: 



A. To issue all national currency, this 

 currency to be fuU legal tender without 

 restrictions. 



B. To redeem, cancel or destroy cur- 

 rency. 



C. To organize and operate a postal 

 savings system in connection. 



A. The issuing of the currency is to be 

 made only on bond security and under uni- 

 form and strict rules: (1) On national 

 bonds, (2) on bonds of the states, (3) on 

 bonds of the irrigation and reclamation 

 districts, (4) on first-mortgage bonds of 

 railroad companies. 



B. This would require of the bank pro- 

 posed that— (1) it redeem in coin any legal 

 currency presented, (2) as new currency 

 was issued present currency including 

 greenbacks should be retired and de- 

 stroyed, (3) as matured bonds were paid 

 off corresponding proportions of the na- 

 tional currency should be destroyed. 



C. Postal Savings System.— The 'Bank 

 of the United States' should organize and 

 conduct an efficient postal savings system, 

 receiving, under siiitable rides, deposits of 

 money from the people, and paying inter- 



est on these deposits at the rate of 2^ per 

 cent, per annum, or less, as may be by the 

 'bank' from time to time determined, and 

 on sums that have been on deposit sixty 

 days or longer. 



The government should, therefore, con- 

 stantly keep a sufficient supply of gold to 

 be able, and must be willing, to redeem the 

 currency on demand. 



Our Commercial Relations with Latin 



America: Harold Bolce, Washington, 



D. C. 



It is customary to speak in jubilant 

 terms of our commercial destiny in Central 

 and South America. Up to the present, 

 America's share in the foreign commerce 

 of the southern islands and republics of 

 this hemisphere is insignificant. The latest 

 figures show that the foreign trade of the 

 countries (exclusive of South America) 

 washed by the Caribbean amounts to $462,- 

 000,000. When to that sum is added the 

 value of the external commerce of the 

 Atlantic republics of South America, the 

 total is found to exceed one billion dollars. 

 Of this splendid trade, to reach which no 

 canal is necessary, the United States gets 

 a pitiable ten per cent. 



Of that ten per cent., nearly one half 

 consists of food-stuffs, lumber and kero- 

 sene, practically non-competitive products. 

 As a people, we have made almost no effort 

 to get the trade of Latin America. But 

 for the presence of American colonies in 

 Mexico and the West Indies, our south- 

 borne exports would be too paltry to enu- 

 merate in the totals of American pros- 

 perity. At the present rate of our ship- 

 ments of merchandise to all lands between 

 our border and Patagonia, it will require 

 over one thousand years for the total value 

 to equal the sum of the exchanges in 1905 

 in the clearing houses of the United States. 



We look forward to sailing through the 

 Panama Canal to a large commercial des- 



