office Department is a striking instance of this. It is the rule in other countries that the post-office is a source of public profit. In the United States, while rendering service less in extent and in quality, the postoffice is a sink-hole of public money. In the United • Kingdom, the postal service in 1907 yielded a surplus of over $25,000,000. In that year the operations of our Post-office Department showed a deficit of $8,587,361, which increased to $13,664,108 in 1908. In the decade 1899-1908 the total deficit of our Post-office Department has aggregated $87,644,188, although the receipts increased from $95,021,384 to $191,478,663 per annum. In Canada, with much smaller population and yet with an area about equal to that of the United States, the Post-office Department is operated with profit at lower rates for service in some respects than in the United States. The inferiority of our postal service is notorious. Every postmaster-general labors to improve it, but he finds the way barred. Incredible as the statement may seem, the Post-office Department is not ordinarily consulted as to the location of the buildings which form its business plant. PostmasterGeneral Meyer, in his report for 1908, mentions that appropriations aggregating $18,000,000 had been made for post-office buildings the previous year, but that the department had had nothing to do with the selection of sites. In order to assure myself on this point, I wrote to Mr. Meyer, and was informed that at the previous session more than $20,000,000 had been appropriated without any recommendation from the department.1

1 See Appendix C. The disregard of economy involved by the process is illustrated by the following statement, made by Senator Clay of Georgia :

A curious feature of post-office management, as thus restricted by Congress, is the situation that now exists with respect to the parcels post. Efforts of department officials to induce Congress to permit the extension of that branch of the service have been baffled for many years. Restriction upon this class of business is a great cause of the heavy loss incurred in rural mail delivery. But facilities which Congress denies to the American people in their own country have been obtained for them in other countries by executive arrangements. While parcels over four pounds in weight (except single books) are excluded from domestic mails, the limit is raised to eleven pounds for parcels with a foreign destination. Hence one may send a parcel weighing eleven pounds to any foreign country in the postal union (which includes 38 countries), while the same mails which carry that parcel will reject any parcel over four pounds (not a single book) addressed to a place in the United States, even if only a few miles away from the point of origin. The rate is 16 cents a pound for domestic mails, and only 12 cents for foreign mails. From an economic point of view the situation is singularly fatuous. Unremunerative longhaul business is being preferred to profitable shorthaul business.

A like predominance of particular interest over the general welfare is visible in naval administration. The

"I heard evidence the other day that demonstrated to my mind that we paid $50,000 for the construction of a building in a town where the rent for the building theretofore used was $250 per year, and after the new building was constructed the services of a janitor cost $600 per year." Congressional Record, Vol. 45, No. 132, May 20, 1910, p. 6803.

executive department has been trying to induce Congress to permit a concentration of dock-yard equipment, to reduce expenditure and increase efficiency. But Congress is disposed to retain navy yards as a favor to localities, even when they are too small to be useful. Local interests are so much more important than general interests in the minds of members, that actually it has been contended on the floor of the Senate that instead of having navy yards to suit the navy, the navy should be made to suit the navy yards, and thus justify the millions spent upon them, which now goes to waste. During a debate on the Naval Appropriation bill, of which Senator Hale has charge, he was accused of advocating the maintenance of navy yards incapable of docking a modern battleship. In reply he said :

"What does the senator expect?—that navy yards which have been dealing with smaller ships can be equal to the new and larger ships? That is one of the arguments that was used against these enormous ships that they can get into only two or three yards. But is that the fault of the navy yards?"

Senator Hale referred to this complaint about useless navy yards as "an indictment against the folly of Congress in ordering these monsters," meaning our modern war-ships. Later on he indicated his solution of the difficulty. ships." 1

He said, "I am in favor of smaller

Please observe that I am not making any imputation upon Senator Hale's character. I cite the affair simply as a typical instance of the way in which legislative segmentation and control through standing

1 Congressional Record, Vol. 43, No. 53, February 15, 1909, p. 2435.

committees, enable local interests to subordinate the national welfare. The same disposition is exhibited in the English Parliament. President Lowell of Harvard, in his work on "The Government of England," says:

"The members of the half-dozen boroughs where the state maintains great shops for the construction and repair of war-ships are always urging the interests of the workmen; and they do it with so little regard to the national finances, or to the question whether they are elected as supporters or opponents of the ministry, that they have become a byword in Parliament under the name of 'dock-yard members.'

So you see that the same influences that are at work in our Congress are at work in the English Parliament, but with this vast difference, that under our committee system the dock-yard members have charge of the naval appropriations, while in England the administration has charge of them.

Congressional pretenses to the effect that the appropriations are made in pursuance of executive recommendations are not sustained by the facts as exhibited in congressional procedure. The executive department has not been allowed to have anything to do with budget-making in a responsible way. The appropriation bills take their shape from the views and interests of localities. National policy, as expressed in the recommendations of the executive department, is continually thwarted or ignored. And yet this disposition manifested in Congress to put upon the executive department the responsibility for results which it is powerless to prevent, and which are contrary to its 1 Vol. I, p. 149.

desire, reflects a sound constitutional tradition. That is where the responsibility ought to rest, and the only cure for the present state of constitutional disease is to put that responsibility wholly upon the executive department. It is just here that the fundamental difference exists between our republic and the other commonwealths that have sprung from the English constitutional stock. Under the English constitutional system, no appropriation can be voted unless the administration accepts responsibility for it by a specific recommendation.

The rule of order of the House of Commons governing this matter dates back to July 11, 1713. It is now the oldest of the standing orders of the House of ComIt runs as follows:

mons.

"This House will receive no petition for any sum relating to public service, or proceed upon any motion for a grant or charge upon the public revenue unless recommended by the Crown."

This rule is construed as prohibiting any motion to insert an item in an appropriation bill, or to increase any item beyond what has been asked by the government. A similar provision appears in every constitution of British make, so that it may be regarded as the English constitution hall-mark. Here is the way in which it appears in the constitution granted to the Dominion of Canada in 1867:

"It shall not be lawful for the House of Commons to adopt or pass any Vote, Resolution, Address, or Bill for the appropriation of any part of the Public Revenue, or of any Tax or Impost, to any purpose, that has not been first recommended to that House by message of the Governor-General in the Session in which such Vote, Resolution, Address, or Bill is proposed."