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THE Democratic program on state issues in the coming campaign will be substantially the same as outlined in its platform the last election.

There are three questions of major importance to the welfare of the state which require immediate action. First, the fixing by law of an eight-hour day or forty-eight hour week for women and children employed in the industries of the state. The election of 1922 turned more on this one issue than any other. The refusal by the Republican Senate in the last legislature to concur with the House in the passage of such an act will make this question the chief issue in the next campaign unless in the meantime the employers grant the demand for an eight-hour day.

The only objection raised against such a law was the fear of Southern competition because longer hours are allowed in the South. The thorough investigation by the Labor Committee of the house clearly proved that this fear is ungrounded. While it is highly desirable that there should be a national standard for all industrial states, there is no compelling reason why New Hampshire should wait for Federal action. Moreover, the movement for an eight-hour day for all industries in the United States has been gaining great strength, due chiefly to the force of public opinion. The steel companies are now committed to abolishing the twelve-hour day in the steel industry and substituting there for three shifts of eight hours each. When this is accomplished, by far the greater part of the industrial workers of the United States will be on the eight-hour schedule.

Taxation will also be an important issue in the next campaign. The tax burden in New Hampshire is not only

heavy but most unfairly distributed. A more just distribution cannot be secured without amendments to our Constitution. The last legislature did practically all that can be done under the present Constitution, and while the changes made were undoubtedly an improvement in our tax system, the chief inequalities still exist. Over 80% of the tax burden is laid upon the holders of real estate, and other classes of wealth, which equal or even exceed the value of real estate, escape with little or no contribution. This not only creates injustice as between different tax payers, but has serious results upon the general prosperity of the state. The industry of farming, which already labors under serious difficulties which are nation-wide in their scope and beyond the power of the state of New Hampshire to modify, suffers severely from an unjust burden. of taxation.

Also our present tax system is having a most injurious effect upon our lumber industry. The taxation of partially

matured timber at its full market value compels the owners to cut as soon as possible since the increase in growth will not meet the carrying charges of taxation and interest. No reasonable system of taxing timber lands is possible without an amendment to the Constitution. The amendment as submitted last year was criticised on the ground that it was too broad. The form of the amendment is not of essential importance. Whatever that form may be, the effect of it must be to eliminate the effect of the word "proportional" in our Constitution as construed by the Court. This was most conclusively shown by the decision of the judges on the questions presented to them by the House of Representatives

in the last session of the legislature.

The state of New Hampshire possesses two natural resources, water powers and timber lands. So far the state has done practically nothing towards the development of these resources. In fact, its system of taxation is tending to seriously injure our timber lands. The water powers of the state have been developed to the fullest extent possible by private capital; that is, the available water power sites have been developed to a maximum capacity with the natural flow of our streams. The creation of storage reservoirs at the headwaters of our streams would probably nearly double the water power of the state. The creation of such reservoirs cannot be done by private capital. An increase in the flow of the stream is a benefit to

every water power on that stream, and as these powers are held by a great variety of owners it is impossible to secure voluntarily proper distribution. of the cost of the development of the reservoirs. The state seems to be the only agency which can, therefore, make this development.

An attempt to start a comprehensive policy of water power development was made in the last session of the legislature. The bill introduced by Ex-governor Bass, providing for the use of the credit of the state in the development of storage reservoirs, was passed by the House and defeated in the Senate. A more comprehensive plan along the same lines should be worked out and made an essential part of the Democratic program.

N point of service, the Democratic Party of the future will be the Democratic Party of the past reshaped only in the policies necessary to meet the exigencies of post-war conditions.

Its origin is traced in the grey dawn of the country's birth. Its inception dates from the dark days following this Republic's first lusty struggles. When Thomas Jefferson dickered with Napoleon Bonaparte for the famous Louisiana Purchase-a vast empire far flung from the Mississippi to the Pacific-the Democratic Party was, even then, delivering master strokes in the destiny of the so-called American government experiment.

Down through eventful decades it has been always the safety valve of the nation's stability and honor at home and abroad. Beginning with Andrew Jack son's time, the Democratic Party has had a continually recurring renascence of fervent belief in a higher civilization

and the cause of human progress. For one hunded and forty-two years it has kept burning brightly the unquenchable fires of government by the majority, civic righteousness, and faith of the fathers.

When the problems of the present become dusty with the years and the history of generations yet unborn shall have been written, the Democratic Party will still remain a powerful factor in the political life of this nation-an unfading tribute to the survival of the fittest. It has stood the acid test of time and changing conditions because it was conceived in the cardinal principles of the greatest good for the greatest number.

It has weathered the storms of calumny and detraction because, like a faithful servant, it has never dissembled but has stood four-square to the best interests of the country, both at home and overseas. Through brief periods, its steadying and hopeful influences have

been curtained. Its progressive leadership in state and federal affairs has, at times, been reduced to a minority position but its purpose to combat the foes of forward legislation and effective party service has never wavered. At recurring intervals, misguided adherents have followed after strange gods, only and always to return to the party fold after their pilgrimage of delusion had ended.

Through the vicissitudes of some thirty-three presidential campaigns the star of the Democratic Party has alternately ascended and descended, but has never set. Flaming aloft in the political firmament, in the dawn of another great presidential election, it is right now lighting the way back to tried and proven paths of good government-to sane and sensible democratic principles.

The Democratic Party has never been the torch-bearer of class-consciousness, it is the party of the everyday American citizen-it is still the party of the plain man Jefferson, who rode to his inauguration ceremony on horseback.

It is not within one party member's vision or ability to be able to forecast, at this early day, the issues that will be incorporated into the party's platform next June. But standing as it has always stood upon a record of signal achievements for the welfare of the majority, rather than for favors extended

to any class, clique or clan, I am certain that the Democratic Party of the future will remain true to the ideals of the past, and therefore, will champion only those reforms and policies calculated to enhance the happiness and prosperity of the country as a whole.

It is not likely that its agenda will call for wrestling with reparations, World Courts, Leagues, and other international imbroglios until the house of Uncle Sam, and our own business, has been put in order. We do not require any political savant to tell us what ought to be done. The people know. We do not need any political prophet to forcast the problems the next administration will be called upon to solve. The economic and reconstruction mistakes of the past few years are all too evident. Every thinking man and woman can determine for himself or herself what will happen if our good sense does not lead us out of the wilderness of industrial unrest, hectic business conditions, and general dissatisfaction prevalent everywhere.

But when things go wrong, the American people have a happy habit of coming back to their great redresser of grievances, to the party that, through the years, has espoused the cause of justice. to all, and special privileges to noneto the old, yet ever new, standard of the Democratic Party.

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T is difficult in these days of political unrest, with the continual shifting of political winds, to determine in advance the lines upon which the next campaign will be conducted with regard to national issues.

Conditions of life may bring forward new issues in addition to the tariff, the international problem and the needs of

labor and Western agriculture. I believe the Democratic party will adopt a liberal attitude with regard to platform and candidates. The Republican party appears more likely to represent the conservative forces at the present time.

In the state campaign of 1922 the Democratic party adopted a platform declaring unequivocally for such policies