the total coin and bullion, £38,131,544, and the note circulation, £29,706,350. The figures for two of these items on October 28, thirteen weeks after, are note circulation, £35,112,670, and gold coin and bullion, £61,362,080, the latter an increase in the gold reserve of the Bank of England of £24,690,675, notwithstanding that during the whole three months the mightiest war in the history of the world has been in progress. In addition to the gold coin and bullion above mentioned, a sum of £9,500,000 has been set aside for the Treasury notes.

Another factor that well illustrates the stability of the country's credit is the ease with which it can borrow money and the low rate of interest to be paid. It is estimated that the war is costing the nation upwards of £1,000,000 per day, and the government has had to exercise its borrowing powers to obtain the money to pay. Since the war began it has borrowed by means of Treasury bills, £75,000,000 sterling, at an average rate of interest of less than 334 per cent.

There is an analogy between gold and soldiers; at the commencement of the war our gold reserve was small, dangerously small, although we do not know whether anyone ever said the amount was contemptible. Our army, too, was small, and we had been warned over and over again that it was dangerously small. These two danger points have ever since been righting themselves at a rapid rate; week by week both gold and soldiers have been coming in, in large sums and in large numbers. If the war continues much longer it looks as if we shall have a substantial gold reserve and a great army.-Building Societies' Gazette, England.

Land Mortgage Banks as Rural Credit Aid.

Incorporation of land mortgage banks under both state and federal laws was favored by the committee of rural credits of the seventh annual governors' convention, held at Madison, Wis. The committee report, presented by Governor Emmet O'Neal, of Alabama, recommended uniform legislation regarding registration of land titles, foreclosures and taxation of mortgages, around which much confusion centers. The Torrens land title system was indorsed.

Uniformity along these lines, said the report, would give the farmer access to funds of savings banks, trust funds and reserves of large insurance companies. In this outcome he saw the one great opportunity for farmers of America to obtain adequate funds for agricultural development. He recommended the conference appoint a subcommittee to prepare a new federal bill to meet the conditions and defects as he outlined them.

The state should extend adequate credit to settlers, declared Governor A. O. Eberhart, of Minnesota, just as in his commonwealth public funds are loaned to municipalities and schools. He saw grave difficulties in the way of a uniform system of rural credits owing to the varying rates of interest in different sections of a state.

Our Plain Duty to the Building and Loan Association

Movement of the United States.

Address of CHARLES EUGENE CLARK, President of the United States League of Local
Building and Loan Associations, at the Convention of the New Jersey
State League, at Newark, December 5, 1914.

On behalf of the United States League of Local Building and Loan Associations, I most heartily thank you for the privilege of greeting you, at this, your annual meeting, when as the representatives of the many local associations of the state of New Jersey, you have come together in convention to perpetuate your organization and to counsel with one another, concerning its general welfare.

I only voice the universal hope that this, your meeting, shall be a most pleasant and profitable one, as co-workers in a common cause, you gather to note the progress which has been made during the past year, and to mutually encourage the working, saving cohorts of your citizenry who through your associations are endeavoring to snugly lay away a moiety of the wages of their toll, and thus lay a secure foundation for "American Homes, the Safeguard of American Liberties."

These gatherings conduce to keep alive the spirit of your organization. They afford one and all the means of a closer acquaintance. They permit of the timely discussions of those questions that are germane to your interests, and create that bond which cements individuals and organizations, working in a common cause, and knit together communities and foster that spirit of good fellowship among men which leads to, and makes for the common weal.

Your institutions encourage, to a superlative degree, thrift, economy and home-building among the masses; and upon which laudable purposes are founded in no small degree the prosperity, happiness and contentment of our common country.

For your efforts are entering more largely each year into the lives and conditions of the people of New Jersey, substantially contributing to their social and economic betterment and material advancement.

Under the wise administration of their officers your local associations have afforded their members a profitable place for the investment of their periodic savings, which have been largely handled without loss or scandal to the advantage of depositor and borrower, resulting in the multiplication of American homes and the betterment of your Commonwealth.

Judged by the supreme test of their object and being, the degree with which they have served the interests committed to their charge, your associations are an unqualified success, for you have served both the individual and the state most worthily in the matter of money saving and home building, and have succeeded in making your very existence a most potent necessity to the general welfare.

The building associations of New Jersey have encouraged and enabled your members to save more than eighty-three millions of

dollars of present assets, which mighty sum has been crystalized into thousands of convenient, congenial homes, scattered across the fair face of your wondrous and industrious Commonwealth. And you have enabled the state of New Jersey to take high rank in the building association movement of our common country, and to write a high water line in its building association annals. Your efforts have redounded in a more prosperous and intelligent citizenship. They have made for civic greatness and have enabled your people to take an advanced position among the cities and communities of the land, and to fulfill, to a large degree, the purposes for which God hath fashioned them,

You have rendered to your fellow-man and your state a most meritorious service. You have enriched your community, your neighbor, your state and yourself. Your communities have waxed in increased wealth and population; your neighbor, in an advanced and bettered circumstance; your state, in a larger and broader citizenship; yourself, in a duty well done, and a character enriched and ripened to a larger human service.

Your efforts have resulted in educating your people in that greatest philanthropy, that of learning them how to best and nobly help themselves. They have resulted in better social, industrial, economic and moral conditions, and in a broader patriotism in your midst of American homes, ever the safeguards of our American Liberties, and have contributed largely to the success of our movement throughout the Union.

My friends, what is true of the many accomplishments of your societies in their efforts to build up the characters, broaden the lives of your people and multiply your homes, is also true of the kindred societies working for a common purpose throughout our land and country.

And I pause to commend to you, and to call the attention of the Nation to the untiring and faithful services which have been rendered by not only your own local and state officers, but by those of all of our societies throughout this country who have nobly fulfilled this call to duty, that of helping a universal manhood and whose only reward is that of an unselfish service to their fellow.

To them, and to each of them in their several stations in life, however humble, all honor! For their work is everlasting, as the ideals which they inspire and the results which they achieve shall ever be perpetuated, as the generations shall succeed each other and vie in noble and worthy accomplishments.

We are, indeed, fortunate that our movement is making such great headway among civilized people, both in Europe and America. There are now scattered throughout our common country some sixty-five hundred associations, with a membership of two and a half millions, and with aggregate assets of over one billion, two hundred millions of dollars, and which represent between twelve and fifteen million of our population.

These institutions, the poor man's banks, not only hold open

the door of hope for our struggling masses, but also furnish them a safe and convenient opportunity for investing their savings and of enabling their members, through individual efforts, to improve their condition in life.

It is axiomatic that there is no excellence without labor, and that through supreme effort is born perfection. And so it is with our associations. We have come up to our present estate through much labor, from humble beginnings, until we now command the admiration and confidence of mankind by reason of our wonderous growth and the facility and safety with which we have helped our members to garner uncounted millions and improve their condition in life. Our tremendous success is our highest encomium, more enduring than bronze, and one which shall keep pace with fleeting time so long as we shall endeavor to stimulate the virtues of mankind.

With our larger growth, commensurate with that of our country, we ever increase and multiply and extend our sphere of usefulness as our helpful influence is felt in every city, town and hamlet as we stretch from sea to sea.

For we are as good seed sown upon fertile ground, ever flowering and fructifying with the passing years for the common good. And we shall continue to grow and multiply, so long as there shall be co-operative human need and need of human service; and shall continue to merit the blessings of heaven.

Our cause is now represented by twenty state leagues which, like yourselves, hold their annual conventions wherein topics germane to their organizations are ably discussed, and measures contributive to their welfare adopted. Our annual conventions are largely attended by enthusiastic delegates who vie with one another in making same a grand success, and from which meetings all carry away much enthusiasm and a deeper veneration for the cause which we serve.

We have participated through able delegates in the first International Congress of Building and Loan Associations, Housing Societies and Co-operative Banks, which met in London during the month of August of the present year, and which, as an International Clearing House, afforded an exchange of topics and ideas represented by ourselves and kindred societies, both at home and abroad.

The coming year we will hold at San Francisco, both the annual convention of the United States League of Local Building and Loan Associations, as well as that of the second International Congress of Building Associations and Housing Societies, of which august body we have been honored with the presidency in the person of the Hon. Louis L. Rankin, of Columbus, Ohio, one of the foremost and most enthusiastic disciples of the Gospel of Cooperation throughout this Union.

I beg of you that the New Jersey State League will be fully represented at these gatherings, which will meet probably during the month of August on the shores of the Golden Gate, and they

in connection with the numerous delegates and friends who are expected from the other states of the Union, will show the world that we know how to arise to the occasions when acting as hosts to this International body; and I pledge you that our brethren of California will make all thrice welcome who shall come to these conventions, which will be held during the celebration of the Panama-Pacific Exposition.

I doubt not but that the great Trans-Continental Railways will make most exceptional rates as an additional inducement to encourage a grand attendance at this World's Fair.

Our cause has been ably championed by the editor of the AMERICAN BUILDING ASSOCIATION NEWS, the Hon. Henry S. Rosenthal, of Cincinnati, who has spared neither time nor pains to serve us royally and well, and give us as much publicity as was possible in his able journal. To him we are largely indebted for the prosperous condition in which we find our cause, as it reaches from ocean to ocean.

I take pleasure in testifying to the many able representatives which the New Jersey State League has ever sent to the Councils of our National Associations. They have indeed been an honor to you and worthy representatives of your cause, and have contributed largely to our abundant success. Among your many delegates I would especially mention your worthy president, the Hon. Jos. A. McNamee.

The general conditions which confront us are, in the main, most happy ones. We have indeed been blessed with a most marvelous growth. In most of the states of the Union we have been generously dealt with, being encouraged by wise and liberal laws which have nurtured our growth and protected us from such measures and conditions which might otherwise have minimized our usefulness or dwarfed our ambition for the common good.

Along with our mighty interests, with their abundant successes, we must be ever watchful to conserve our interests, which are those of the masses, and see to it that our sphere of usefulness is not diminished through harsh or ill-advised legislation.

Such acts as the present stamp tax, which now confronts us, in some degree, and the constant desire in many states of the taxing authorities to include all property in their revenue measures, serve to warn us of the peril that ever confronts us, and emphasize the necessity for the establishment of a robust bureau of publicity and promotion, one which shall ever give us and our cause that publicity and protection as will conserve our interests and make known to the world, our laudable purposes as a most worthy asset of the state.

The establishment of such a bureau, the necessity and wisdom of which is now under consideration by the United States League, would in the coming years aid us to more fully and truly fulfill our mission of assisting those whom we can best serve.

A corps of able speakers and lecturers can more largely popularize our institutions by bringing them to a more general notice