through which the interest rate beyond six per cent. upon call loans made at the New York Stock Exchange can be better regulated than at present. Mr. SCHIFF characterized the then existing conditions in regard to call loans as nothing less than barbarous, and declared his inability to believe that it is necessary for the rate of interest on such loans to advance on a single day from six or seven per cent. in the morning to twenty-five or thirty per cent. and higher in the afternoon. The Committee reported at the February meeting that after fully discussing the scope and purport of the resolution they found the views of the members of the Committee to be so widely divergent as to possible remedies that they were unable to agree upon a report, and they asked to be discharged from further consideration of the resolution.

The New Post Office Building.-At the February meeting, a resolution approving of the bill introduced by Congressman OLCOTT, calling for an appropriation of $3,500,000 for the construction of a post office building for this City on the site already acquired, was unanimously adopted. It was pointed out that the facilities provided by the present post office building have long since been proved insufficient to meet the needs of the service, and the Chamber urged upon Congress that the appropriation for the purpose of erecting a new building be passed at the present session.

Public Service Commissions Bill.-The Chairman of the Committee on Internal Trade and Improvements submitted at the April meeting a report and resolution, which were adopted, in regard to the bill pending in the State Legislature, providing for the establishment of the Public Service Commissions. The Committee regarded the general features of this proposed law as an important and perhaps decisive step towards sound re-adjustment of the relations between the public and the corporations which enjoy franchises or corporate rights under grants made by the Legislature. In some respects, however, the Committee believed that the bill required amendment. Reference was made to the extensive provisions for interference with the executive

and internal administration of corporations. These seemed to the Committee to be unnecessary in order to carry out the general purpose of the bill, and inconsistent with efficiency and even safety of administration. The provision that the Commission may issue orders to employees was declared to be clearly wrong. In the case of a railroad company, public safety requires that orders shall be issued only by officers of the company according to the rules governing it, and any direct issues of orders or other interference with discipline by an outside authority ought not to be permitted. The Committee expressed the hope that in all these matters of administration, and in the provisions which deal with the methods of creating stock, borrowing money, and organizing and consolidating companies, the bill would be so amended as not unnecessarily to restrict enterprise or prohibit legitimate invitations to new capital. In the opinion of the Committee, rigorous publicity is the true, and, in the long run, the most effective cure for evils in these respects, rather than the establishment of minute requirements as to the detail of administration. It was also the judgment of the Committee that the act ought, subject to proper restrictions, to provide a judicial review as to the justice and reasonableness of orders which tend seriously to impair the income or available capital of corporations. Amended in the respects indicated, it was resolved that the Chamber should urge the Legislature to pass the bill.

The State Forest Preserve.-At the February meeting a preamble and resolution were offered by Mr. CHARLES S. SMITH, setting forth the menace to the State Forest Preserve involved in a concurrent resolution then pending in the Legislature. One of the objects of the resolution was to permit damming of the streams in the Adirondack region under the plea of storage of water for public purposes while it is really sought to construct dams and reservoirs for private gain. In support of the protest against the passage of the resolution, a letter was read from the President of the Chamber in which he alluded to the fact that the preservation of the Adirondack forest was brought

before the Chamber in 1883 by himself and others, with the result that a Committee was appointed to represent the Chamber at Albany in regard to this subject. The Committee succeeded in arousing public interest, and finally procured the appointment by the Legislature of the first Forestry Commission. The Chamber has followed the subject with intelligent interest ever since, and it was largely influential in having inserted in the new Constitution of the State the clause relating to the Adirondack forests, which the concurrent resolution referred to proposes to defeat. At the request of Mr. JESUP, Mr. JOSEPH H. CHOATE gave a brief historical review of the connection of the Chamber with this subject, and explained the action of the Constitutional Convention in regard to the forest preserves. That action was taken by a nearly unanimous vote and was endorsed by the people with similar emphasis. An amendment very like the one now offered passed two successive Legislatures and was submitted to the people in 1896, but was voted down by a larger vote, Mr. CHOATE believed, than had ever been given upon any single Constitutional amendment proposed and submitted to them in this State. The preamble and resolution of protest were unanimously adopted.

Objects of Charitable Benificence.-It was announced at the annual meeting of May, 1906, that the total subscriptions received by the Chamber for the sufferers by the San Francisco disaster amounted up to that date to $778,000. Of this sum $610,705 was contributed by 360 members of the Chamber-a gratifying evidence, as President JESUP remarked that the Chamber generally practices what it preaches.

Another appeal was made at the February meeting on behalf of the sufferers by famine in China, and at the meeting in March in regard to the existing famine in Southeastern Russia. In both cases the Chamber urged its members to contribute to the fund which had already been started for the relief of these two cases of wide-spread and serious distress.

Distinguished Guests.-Among the distinguished visitors introduced to the Chamber during the year were Sir ALEXANDER BROWN, an old merchant of this City, and for many years the head of the great house of BROWN, SHIPLEY & Co., of London; Senator RICHARD WADDINGTON, an active member of the French Senate and President of the Chamber of Commerce of Rouen, and the Right Honorable JAMES BRYCE, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Great Britain to the United States. The introduction of Mr. BRYCE took the form of a special reception, which was attended by 560 members of the Chamber. In the absence of Mr. JESUP, Mr. JOHN S. KENNEDY, the Senior Vice-President, presided. In introducing the honored guest, Mr. KENNEDY adverted to the fact that his recollections of Mr. BRYCE extended back sixty years when both were boys in Glasgow. He had consequently followed Mr. BRYCE's career with special interest, and said that probably no one his Government could have selected was better equipped for the responsible duties he had undertaken. The formal address of welcome was made by Mr. SETH Low, who, in expressing regret for the absence of Mr. JESUP, paid a warm tribute to the President of the Chamber. Mr. Low said that he and his fellow-members welcomed Mr. BRYCE first of all in his representative capacity as Ambassador of the great country of which they of the Chamber of Commerce, at least, did not hesitate to speak of as the mother country, because the Charter of the Chamber was granted in Colonial days when New York was a province of Great Britain. Whatever differences might have arisen between the two nations since, underlying them all is the common ground of kinship in purpose and destiny which makes the tie between them a very real one.

In his reply Mr. BRYCE said he could find no words worthy or adequate to express his sense of gratitude for the reception accorded him. It was a source of special interest and pleasure to be received by the Chamber, since having once been President of the British Board of Trade he had necessarily become familiar with great commercial questions. He referred in terms of admiration to the

amazing progress made by the City of New York, and intimated his belief that in thirty or forty years the population within twenty miles of the spot on which they stood would be the largest aggregation of population upon the earth. He looked upon the unprecedented growth of trade between the United States and Great Britain as being a guarantee that peace and good will would rest upon a material as well as upon a sentimental basis. He admired the swift responsiveness to every change in conditions, to every change in production and transportation which American markets show. He spoke of the counsel of caution which the timid European who does his business in a quieter fashion might be tempted to address to us here, but he had learned enough of practical experience in commerce to know that it would probably be useless. He did not believe that the violent oscillations in trade and in stock securities which asserted themselves occasionally here revealed anything unsound in the material condition of the country. So far as he could venture an opinion, the industries and the commerce of the whole continent of the United States, and of Canada also, are in a state of stable and assured prosperity. He rejoiced in this, not less as an Englishman than as a friend and lover of America, and he looked forward with confidence to a long future of prosperity for this country-of constantly expanding commerce, accompanied by the constantly increasing welfare and happiness of the masses of our people.

Annual Banquet.-Among the guests of honor at the annual banquet of the Association, held on November 22, 1906, the chief were Baron SPECK VON STERNBURG, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Germany, and the Right Honorable Sir HENRY MORTIMER DURAND, the then retiring Ambassador of Great Britain. The former responded to the toast of "The Relations between the German Empire and the United States," and referred to the historical friendship which had existed from the earliest days of the republic between this country and Prussia. During America's period of necessity and weakness, in the trying years between 1783 and 1789, Prussia