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which will form the basis of a report upon the bill (H. R. 4064) now pending in the House of Representatives entitled "A bill limiting the hours of daily service of laborers and mechanics employed upon work done for the United States or for any Territory or for the District of Columbia, and for other purposes."

The bimonthly Bulletin has been issued regularly every other month during the past year, and each number has contained, in addition to one or more special articles, timely data relative to agreements between employers and employees, digests of recent reports of State bureaus of labor statistics, digests of recent foreign statistical publications, decisions of courts affecting labor, and laws of various States relating to labor. Among the special articles published during the past year in the Bulletin are the following:

Labor Unions and British Industry.

The Annual Index of Wholesale Prices, Covering the Period from 1890 to 1903. The Union Movement among Coal Mine Workers.

Child Labor in the United States.

Wages and Cost of Living (a summary of the eighteenth and nineteenth annual reports of the Bureau).

Building and Loan Associations in the United States.

The bulletin for September (No. 54) is devoted to a description of the exhibit of the Bureau at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, and contains reproductions of the principal charts and photographs presented in that exhibit, together with the following series of papers relating more or less closely to the various features covered by the exhibit:

The Working of the United States Bureau of Labor.
Bureaus of Statistics of Labor in the United States.
Bureaus of Statistics of Labor in Foreign Countries.

The Value and Influence of Labor Statistics.

Strikes and Lockouts in the United States, 1881 to 1900.

Wages in the United States and Europe, 1890 to 1903.

Cost of Living and Retail Prices in the United States, 1890 to 1903.

Wholesale Prices in the United States, 1890 to 1903.

Housing of the Working People in the United States by Employers.
Public Baths in the United States.

Trade and Technical Education in the United States.

Hand and Machine Labor in the United States.

Labor Legislation in the United States.

Labor Conditions in Hawaii.

A special report entitled "Labor laws of the United States," which revises and brings down to date the second special report of the Bureau, published in 1896, is now going through the press and will shortly be available for distribution. The eleventh special report, relating to restriction of output in the United States and Europe, is now in the hands of the printer. As the result of investigations in progress or

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completed, reports on the following subjects will appear during the coming year, either in the Bulletin or in the form of special reports:

Coal Mine Labor in Europe.

Street-Railway Labor in the United States.

Benefit Features of Trade Unions in the United States and Europe.

Labor Conditions in Australia.

Labor Conditions in the Philippine Islands.

LIGHT-HOUSE BOARD.

The insular possessions and dependencies of the United States are insistent in their demands either to have their light-house services taken over and administered by the Federal Government, or to have more and better aids to navigation in the form of light-houses, lightvessels, fog signals, and buoys. Provision has been made by which the Alaskan waters will be well supplied with necessary aids to navigation, except the small and inexpensive post lights, many of which are needed, but which can only be supplied by legislative sanction. These requirements are fully set forth in the annual report of the Light-House Board. The needs of Porto Rico are fairly cared for so far as is possible without a light-house tender built specially for those waters, for which an appropriation has been asked of Congress.

The Hawaiian waters have a mere skeleton of a light-house service, simply a frame to build upon, and the Light-House Board is, for lack of funds and legislative authority, scarcely able to maintain what it took over under Executive order. The needs of Hawaii in this respect, as stated by the Light-House Board in its annual report, are commended to the consideration of Congress. The needs of American shipping in the waters of Navassa, Guam, and the Midway Islands are beginning to assert themselves, and the Department is prepared to take up such burdens as Congress may devolve upon it for the safeguarding of commerce in those waters.

The Department respectfully calls attention to the fact that owing to the want of sufficient appropriations it was unable to make needed repairs, to retain its full force of keepers, or to man and put into operation certain of its newly-built light-houses. The following statement made in its annual report of last year is renewed:

The Department invites attention to the need of meeting the estimates for the maintenance of the Light-House Establishment with full appropriations. The amounts asked are urgently required. Any diminution of them will retard the operations of the establishment to just that extent. The increase in the number of aids to navigation since the last appropriations occasions the increase in the requirements of the establishment. The estimates have been carefully framed, and are based on an aggregate of items. Hence the reduction of the estimates will require the abandonment of items to the extent of the reduction.

The Department repeats its recommendations of last year as to light-house tenders and the establishment of two additional lighthouse districts, as follows:

Especial attention is invited to the several estimates for the cost of building lighthouse tenders. These vessels are the eyes and hands of the establishment. By and with them the quarterly inspections are made, the personnel of the establishment is kept up to its standard, the 1,550 light keepers are paid quarterly, supplies of oil, fuel, and other necessaries are delivered at the light stations, and repairs of old stations and the construction of new ones are made. The lack of sufficient lighthouse tenders has made it necessary to do certain work by contract which otherwise would have been done by employees of the Department with greater promptitude and at less expense. Attention is invited to the estimate for a light-house tender to be used in Porto Rican waters, especially as it will be necessary to use her in connection with the aids to navigation in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the naval coal station has just been established.

The Light-House Establishment is now limited by law to 16 districts. The LightHouse Board in its annual report has set out the need for two more districts, one to embrace Alaskan waters and the other to embrace Porto Rican waters, as well as the aids to navigation now in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and to be hereafter established there. The aids to navigation in Alaskan waters are now looked after by the inspector and engineer of the thirteenth light-house district, who have their headquarters at Portland, Oreg., or about 1,800 miles away from, some portions of their work. This great distance makes it very difficult, and in some instances impossible, to give that careful supervision to the work which the interests of commerce and navigation require.

The establishment of a new district, with headquarters for the inspector and engineer near its center, will do much for the increased convenience and safety of the growing commerce in these waters. The aids to navigation in Porto Rican waters are now, and those in Guantanamo Bay will be, under the supervision of the inspector and engineer of the third light-house district, whose offices are on Staten Island New York, some 1,500 miles away from this work. The establishment of a new district will enable the Board to place an inspector and engineer, say, at San Juan, P. R., where they would be within about 100 miles of their work in Porto Rican waters, and much nearer Guantanamo Bay than is now the case.

The estimates made for such special structures as are needed for the exhibition of lights required to make useful at night channels cut by legislative order seem to require special Congressional attention.

The Department urgently invites attention to the estimates for light-house structures for which authorized contracts have been made, and for the completion of which additional appropriations are required. The estimates made for new light-houses, new light-vessels, new fog signals, and other proposed structures have in some instances been repeated from year to year. In every case the necessity for such work has been determined by careful examination after repeated demands therefor by commercial interests. The estimates, so I am informed, have been carefully made by the light-house inspectors and engineers, and thoroughly verified by the Light-House Board in its committees and by its executive officers. It remains for Congress to

decide whether the needs of commerce require immediate action upon these estimates.

BUREAU OF THE CENSUS.

The Director of the Census reports gratifying progress in the three main lines of work upon which the Bureau was engaged during the past fiscal year. These were special reports authorized by Congress, the tabulation of the Philippine census, and work assigned to the Bureau by the Department.

SPECIAL REPORTS.

The special reports in progress comprised inquiries concerning wealth, debt, and taxation, including statistics of municipal finance; defective, dependent, and delinquent classes; annual mortality; blind, deaf, and dumb; social and financial conditions in cities; electrical industries, and cotton statistics. Preparation has been made for the manufacturing census of 1905.

The report upon wealth, debt, and taxation is one of the most difficult and important which the Bureau is called upon to prepare. No previous inquiry upon these subjects has been entirely successful, due largely to the pressure of work in connection with the main inquiries of the census. The postponement of this report until after the completion of the census proper was one of the wisest provisions of the act for taking the Twelfth Census; it has given the Bureau ample time for a most complete presentation of the financial operations of the nation. The task of securing comparable statistics was exceedingly difficult, and in order to complete satisfactorily the decennial inquiry authorized by Congress it was necessary for the Bureau to take the lead in a movement looking to greater uniformity in the accounting methods of municipalities. Several cities have made changes in their systems of accounting in order to conform wholly or in part to the classification adopted by the Bureau.

The representatives of the Bureau have met everywhere with the hearty cooperation of local officials. It is probable that the annual census reports upon municipal finance for cities of 30,000 population and over will prove the most influential factor in securing the adoption of uniform classification, thus materially lessening the cost of compiling census statistics upon this subject, increasing the accuracy of the returns, making comparisons possible, and encouraging reforms in the public service.

Two special reports have been undertaken as essential to a full valuation of property. One of these, relating to the valuation of railroad properties, properly apportioned to the several States and Territories, has been undertaken in cooperation with the Interstate Com

merce Commission. The other relates to the par and market values of the negotiable securities of the country. This report will cover an entirely new field of Federal statistical investigation.

Satisfactory progress has been made upon the inquiry concerning defective, dependent, and delinquent classes, and reports are now being received from 5,441 special agents, who are the bookkeepers or wardens of the institutions under review, and who furnish transcripts of their records for a nominal compensation. The report will cover the movement of population in all these institutions for the calendar year 1904; its completion can therefore hardly be looked for during the fiscal year 1905.

The annual reports on mortality in registration areas, authorized by section 7 of the census act, have been delayed in compilation owing to the fact that the statute fixed the compensation to be paid for the transcription of registration records at so low a figure that it proved impossible to secure complete and satisfactory performance of the service. Congress was accordingly asked at its last session to amend the law, but the amendment did not become effective until April 27 last. Four reports relating to electrical industries have been completed. These cover electric railways, electric light and power plants, municipal electric fire-alarm and police-patrol systems, and telegraphs and telephones. Advance bulletins concerning all of these subjects have been issued, and it is planned to publish them in permanent form in the near future. Together they present a complete account of the remarkable development of the electrical industry in its application to public utilities.

The annual canvass of the cotton ginners of the southern States, taken for the purpose of ascertaining the size of the crop during the progress of the picking, was made last year with results highly gratifying from the point of view both of accuracy and of the promptness with which the information was given to the public. There will be six canvasses during the coming year showing the amounts of cotton ginned to September 1, October 18, November 14, December 13, 1904 January 16, 1905, and the end of the season.

The Bureau has been actively engaged in the preparation necessary for the census of manufactures for 1905, authorized by section 8 of the census act. It is planned to collect a considerable percentage of the schedules by correspondence, and a copy of the schedule will be mailed to every manufacturer in the United States whose existence is known, in advance of the actual canvass by districts. In the field work it is proposed to utilize the clerical force of the Bureau, so far as possible, thus avoiding the necessity of appointing untried and untrained special agents to superintend the canvass. In accordance with the authorization contained in the act of Congress approved

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