The other leading crops show the same limitations except in the case of corn and here the exception is more apparent than real. The increased acreage is due mainly to the use of the silo which extends the planting of corn and into areas where it will not mature. We seemed, for example, to have had a record crop for corn last year but 40 per cent of it proved unmarketable showing that it was grown beyond the recognized corn belt. This increase of corn acreage is also at the expense of wheat. But for the enlarged area for wheat cultivation in the upland states of the west where dry farming prospers, there would be a distinct falling off in the production of wheat. The increase of acreage comes in each case from the attempted use of poor land which yields no surplus and soon loses its fertility. The total value of all crops for the five years up to 1914 averaged 9.4 billion dollars. The total of these crops for 1917 was 19.4 billion dollars. The quantity increases, however, were slight, as the following table will show. The one apparent exception is corn, but this exception is more apparent than real. It is fodder corn and not market corn which is increasing. The quantity of market corn was less last year than for 1915 or 1916.

In the table, page 143, the figures on grain are from the Department of Agriculture, and represent farm values. Sugar values are based on average wholesale price of refined sugar at New York. For meats the figures in the 1911 column represent the average for 3 pre-war years, based on 1911 values. For sheep and mutton, except for 1917, the figures are for years ending June 30 of the years stated. All meat values are based on average wholesale prices of legs (for mutton); rounds (for beef); and loins (for pork) for the years stated.

THE NEED FOR A BUDGET SYSTEM IN THE UNITED

STATES

BY CHARLES BEATTY ALEXANDER, LL.D.,

Regent of the University of the State of New York.

The time seems ripe for the introduction of a national budget. Long advocated by students of political science; planned by President Taft; endorsed by the National Chamber of Commerce; agitated in Congress; favored by President Wilson and Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo; urged by the chairman of the committee on appropriations of the House of Representatives, himself an expert in matters of finance; pledged by the Progressive, Republican and Democratic parties in their platforms for the presidential election of 1916; discussed from the platform and in the press all over the country within recent months; supported by the people, who have lately had their attention turned rather sharply toward direct taxation by the federal government; and recognized by the whole nation as a needful measure, the way seems prepared for the introduction of this fundamental reform.

In his message to Congress, on January 17, 1912, President Taft said:

The United States is the only great nation whose government is operated without a budget. This fact seems to be more striking when it is considered that budgets and budget procedures are the outgrowth of democratic doctrines and have håd an important part in the development of modern constitutional rights. The American Commonwealth has suffered much from irresponsibility on the part of its governing agencies. The constitutional purpose of a budget is to make government responsive to public opinion and responsible for its acts. A budget should be the means of getting before the legislative branch, before the press, and before the people a definite annual program of business to be financed; it should be in the nature of a prospectus, both of revenues and expenditures; it should comprehend every relation of the government to the people, whether with reference to the raising of revenues or the rendering of service.

Thus President Taft stated broadly the advantages and purposes of the budget system. Though the term "budget" is used in a variety of restricted meanings, this conception of the plan embraces a complete scheme of annual finance for the government; a comprehensive, unified statement, in summary and in detail, of the expenditures on the one hand and of the revenues on the other; &

presentation at every stage, from the submission of estimates, through enactment into law, to its administration and to nal auditing of accounts, of a complete view of the whole financial program of the government; something that would show every separate problem with reference to its relative importance and its bearing to every other problem; an assurance of equilibrium of expenditures and income; the preparation of the budget by a responsible executive department which alone possesses the necessary expert knowledge of its vast, technical and various businesses and alone knows its real needs; and the adoption by a legislature responsible to the people.

The management of the public finances is the center of a constitutional system. Nearly every great problem before a legislature presents itself in the tangible form of a proposition of either taxation or expenditure. Ours is the only great nation whose government does business without a budget. Our long years of deficiency in this respect is not a reasonable precedent; nor is this precedent rightly based on historical origin and constitutional reasons. The traditional and generally accepted theory of our government is not referred to in the constitution at all.

The framers of our fundamental law wrote little about budget making but they well understood that it involves the whole character of constitutional government. The constitution deals briefly with finance. It gives the control of the purse to Congress but says little about processes. No method of procedure is prescribed. It has a few general provisions susceptible of wide interpretation and application. It seems to have been assumed that English precedents would be followed, a determined procedure which required no special or limiting provisions. The traditional course was pursued at first in the various acts by which the organization of the government was completed, i.e. they were prepared for Congress by the administration. Cabinet officials assumed direct relations with Congress, after the English fashion. In the beginning there were no standing committees in the House of Representatives. The latter simply resolved itself into a committee of the whole for the consideration of financial measures.

But after the government became firmly established and party divisions arose, a profound change took place which the framers of the constitution could not have intended nor foreseen. The con

stitutional prohibition of office-holders serving as members of Congress was employed to terminate the speaking privilege of cabinet officials in the national legislature. The direct initiative of the administration was thus ended. The constitution contains nothing about the committee system, but such bodies soon arose to intervene between the recommendations of the administration and action by Congress. The incipient method of procedure thus broke down and the American system diverged from its English prototype.

There is lacking in our financial method the element of careful, intelligible, responsible planning. From the very beginning there has been conflict between the executive and legislative branches over the method followed, and criticism of our policy has increased as inefficiency has grown more noticeable and pronounced. Other countries have incorporated important reforms or radically altered their systems of finance, but we have not profited at all by the experience of the civilized world. Our changes have been for the worse. The vast sums necessary to run our government are handled in a preposterous way. In his book, Cost of Our National Government, Professor Ford says: "Compared with the exact and minute system of English budget control our, methods seem like the ignorant and disorderly practices of barbarians."

The word "budget" can hardly be used at all in relation to our financial operations. The preparation of bills for both appropriations and revenues, the allotment and the spending of the money, and the auditing of accounts are made without any definite financial policy, either executive or legislative.

Some reform is necessary and inevitable. Since the foundation of our government the annual expenditures in normal times have increased from about $3,000,000 to about $2,000,000,000. Extravagance and invisible government have brought the budget idea to public attention. Congress and the people both need what they have never had, a comprehensive and clear annual statement of the national finances; some plan that would show each problem with reference to its relative importance and bearing to every other problem. The present trifling and jumbled methods of Congress can not develop real statesmen with a broad national outlook.

No single change in our government would be so largely conducive to efficiency as a proper budget method. It is dictated by