The National Society for Vocational Education (140 West 42d St., New York) has issued a series of bulletins: No. 29, Commercial Education; No. 30, Industrial Education; No. 81, Agricultural Education. The United States Council of National Defense, under date of May 1, 1919, has prepared a pamphlet on Readjustment and Reconstruction Information, devoted to activities in foreign countries (Washington, pp. 188). Corporations The Equitable Trust Company of New York has prepared Analyses of the Esch and Cummins Railroad Bills giving the essential points in parallel columns. The Guaranty Trust Company of New York has prepared a bulletin under date of October 28, 1919, on New Railways in Foreign Countries. Labor The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics has published the following bulletins : No. 251, Preventable Death in Cotton Manufacturing Industry, by The hearings before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor relating to the Investigation of Strike in Steel Industries appear in two parts (Washington, 1919, pp. 1,051). These hearings were held during the months of September and October, 1919. This committee has also submitted its report on Investigating Strike in the Steel Industry (Report No. 289, 66 Cong., 1 Sess.). A Preliminary Statement of the Industrial Conference called by the President has been printed (Washington, 1919, pp. 12). Miss Laura A. Thompson, of the United States Department of Labor Library, has prepared nine pages of mimeographed sheets giving references to recent literature on Collective Bargaining. The California State Library has compiled Labor Laws of California (San Francisco, 1919, pp. 261). There has also been compiled Labor Laws of Minnesota (Department of Labor and Industries, St. Paul, pp. 184). Bulletin No. 128 of the Bureau of Statistics of Massachusetts contains the Ninth Annual Report on Union Scale of Wages and Hours of Labor in Masachusetts, 1918 (Boston, Oct. 1, 1919, pp. 1410). Among recent labor reports which have been received are: Annual Report of the Industrial Commission of New York for year ending June 30, 1918 (Albany, 1919, pp. 261). Thirty-sixth Annual Report of the Department of Labor of Michigan (Lansing, 1919, pp. 766). The Twenty-second Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor and Statistics of Virginia (Richmond, 1919, pp. 48). Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor of West Virginia, 1917-1918 (pp. 99). General Report of the Minister of Public Works and Labour of the Province of Quebec for the year ending June 30, 1919 (Quebec, pp. 200). Money, Prices, Credit, and Banking The War Industries Board has issued a long series of Price Bulletins, prepared under the supervision of Wesley C. Mitchell. No. 1 is History of Prices during the War (pp. 95). Other bulletins deal with a great variety of commodities among which may be mentioned a few of the most important: tea and coffee, dyestuffs, rubber, paper, iron and steel, coal and coke, petroleum, lumber, wool and wool products, hides and skins, cotton, prices of foods, clothing, building materials, feed and forage, wheat and wheat products, corn and corn products, sugar. The hearings before the Committee on Banking and Currency, United States Senate, on The Nomination of John Skelton Williams have been printed (Washington, 1919, pp. 1,058). Considerable evidence deals with the handling of government deposits in different banks. The Comptroller of the Currency has issued some charts on Net Earnings of the National Banks of the United States 1874-1919; Reduction in Failures of National Banks, 1874-1919; Growth of Resources, Deposits, Capital Surplus, and Undivided Profits since 1914 compared with Preceding Forty Years. The Postmaster General, under date of December 1, 1919, has transmitted a letter to the House of Representatives on Operations of the Postal Savings System (Washington, pp. 44). The Annual Report of the Director of the Mint for 1919 (Washington, pp. 300) contains statistics relating to the production of precious metals during 1918. The United States Council of National Defense has published an Analysis of the High Cost of Living Problem, submitted by Grosvenor B. Clarkson (Washington, Aug., 1919, pp. 23). The subject of the High Cost of Living in the District of Columbia (Washington, 1919, pp. 990) contains a considerable amount of statistical material relating to prices. These hearings have been summarized in a Summary and Review (pp. 32). The subject of the cost of living has also been taken up by the House Committee on Agriculture in two parts covering hearings on Amendments Proposed to the Food Control Act (Washington, 1919, pp. 92). The Annual Report of the Commissioner of Banking of New Jersey for 1918 (pp. 38) has been received. Public Finance OHIO TAX REPORT. Ohio's tax problems have long been of wide general interest and have been treated officially in a series of excellent reports. The one under review (Report of the Special Joint Taxation Committee of the Eighty-third Ohio General Assembly, Columbus, 1919, pp. 165) does indeed bear witness to necessary haste in its preparation, but its grasp of essential problems is sure and its sense of the political situation to be met seems to be good. The report was mainly written by the economic advisor of the committee, Professor H. L. Lutz of Oberlin College, who has also contributed an appendix on the Operation of State Income Taxes. Almost as much interest attaches to the introductory chapters as to the recommendations of the report. In a chapter on the financial situation the conclusion is reached that the present system of providing the state's revenues from certain segregated sources is breaking down and that adequate provision for schools, health supervision, and road construction would add the last straw. As matters stand, an annual deficit of from $1,000,000 to $4,000,000 in the general revenue fund is expected. The committee is not inclined to give credence to the oftrepeated charges that local government in Ohio is unwarrantably extravagant. Instead, it concludes that the recent growth of expenditures has been in the main inevitable and it believes that the tax rate limit laws have not permitted the proper conduct of local governmental activities. With respect to schools, the heartening statement is made that "there must be for all school districts a greater recognition of the state's obligation for the proper support of education." In comment ing on the rapid growth of local debt the committee says: "We have pursued a policy of comparative indifference to the rate of debt creation but of rigid restriction upon the ability of a community to pay off its debts." In view of the great popularity of the Smith tax rate limit law the committee is courageous as well as correct in holding its rigid limitations partially responsible for the recent growth of local debts. But the committee does not venture to propose any serious modification of those limitations. In any proposal for adjustment of the Ohio revenue system to meet the financial situation thus set forth, the general property tax must be accepted as the head of the corner. The overwhelming defeat of the proposed classification amendment last fall made that abundantly clear. For this reason and because the revenue sources heretofore segregated to the state are believed to be wanting in both adequacy and elasticity, the committee turns to a state levy of 1.7 mills on general property in its search for means for relief of the schools. Together with a local tuition levy of 1 mill and authorization of a special levy not exceeding 2 mills outside the 15 mill limit, the relief afforded should be reasonably adequate. Similar relief is not afforded the universities, which under the legislation proposed must hereafter look exclusively to the general fund in lieu of the present millage tax supplemented from the general fund. The committee proposes to replenish both state and local highway funds by means of progressive license fees for motor vehicles. The general state fund will be fed from the state's half of the new inheritance tax, which applies to direct as well as collateral heirs at progressive rates. There is also proposed a new individual income tax which is estimated to yield $8,000,000, of which one fourth would accrue to the state. Since this tax cannot under the constitution be a substitute for the general property tax, but is levied in addition to it, the rates proposed are low-1 per cent on the first $4,000 above the personal exemption and 2 per cent on any remainder. The possible advantages of this additional levy as a differential tax do not appear to have been considered by the committee. The proposed measure is similar to the New York income tax law but would apply to residents only and would not tax stock dividends nor appreciation of capital assets covering more than three years (except when reported on an inventory basis). In case of realization of appreciation, the income would be deemed to have accrued uniformly throughout the period covered and would be taxed at rates applicable to those years.1 1 The income tax bill has failed of passage in the legislature. The committee also recommends a somewhat elaborate constitutional amendment concerning the limitation of local debts, although it concludes that it is not now feasible to establish the right sort of administrative control. Under the amendment the maturity of the debt would be limited to the probable life of the improvement but not exceeding 40 years, nor 8 years in the case of emergency debts. The net general debt, excluding special assessment bonds, bonds issued for self-sustaining public utilities, and certain emergency bonds, would be limited to a percentage of the assessed valuation of real estate varying from 12 per cent in the case of townships to 42 per cent in the case of municipal corporations. It is impossible to foretell how these limits. would work out. In some cases they would permit further debt increase. In others, special provisions made to secure elasticity would have to be availed of at once. But in their simplification of the present restrictions and exceptions, the proposed limitations are wholly commendable. The most important omission in the recommendations concerns the revision of corporation taxes; but there are plausible reasons for this. Perhaps the most significant feature of the report as a whole is the frank recognition of the intimate relation existing in Ohio between tax rate limitation and local debts. Heretofore officials have been somewhat prone to minimize this relation. It augurs well for Ohio that the committee has set this matter in its true light. O. C. LOCKHART. Hearings before the Select Committee on the Budget of the House of Representatives on the Establishment of a National Budget System have been printed in a volume of 788 pages (Washington, 1919). Among the witnesses who gave extended testimony are W. F. Willoughby (pp. 47-102); John T. Pratt, president of the National Budget Committee (pp. 102-148); Samuel M. Lindsay, vice chairman of the National Budget Committee (pp. 148-175); Charles W. Collins (pp. 199-232); Walker W. Warwick, Comptroller of the Treasury (pp. 232-257); Charles A. Beard (pp. 307-316); Ex-President Taft (pp. 464-485); Secretary Glass (pp. 486-514); Frederick A. Cleveland (pp. 514-558); William H. Allen (pp. 558-586). The Bureau of Internal Revenue has issued a bulletin on Average Percentages of Pre-War Income to Pre-War Invested Capital of General Classes of Corporations, grouped as to trades or businesses, as provided for in section 311 (c) (2), Revenue Act of 1918 (pp. 18). |