ment of all claims of the members of the crew of the Sagatind based on their detention and treatment subsequent to the seizure of that vessel on October 12, 1924. The Treasury Department, to which the proposed settlement was referred for an expression of its views, has stated that in view of all the circumstances attending this case it will interpose no objection to settlement of the matter on the basis indicated.

I am of the opinion that the payment of the Norwegian Government's claim in the amount stated, as an act of grace and without reference to the question of legal liability, is warranted in the circumstances, and I recommend that the amount be brought to the attention of the Congress with the recommendation that the necessary legislation be enacted authorizing an appropriation in the sum of $5,000 in settlement of all claims arising as a result of the detention and treatment of members of the crew of the Sagatind subsequent to the seizure of that vessel by the United States Coast Guard on October 12, 1924.

Respectfully submitted.

О

CORDELL HULL.

APRIL 5, 1938.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. CARTWRIGHT, from the Committee on Roads, submitted the

following

REPORT

[To accompany H. R. 10140]

The Committee on Roads, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 10140) to amend the Federal-Aid Road Act, approved July 11, 1916, as amended and supplemented, and for other purposes, having considered the same, unanimously report it without amendment and recommend that the bill do pass.

The bill is a substitute for H. R. 8838 upon which extensive hearings were held by the committee from January 25 to February 9, 1938. These hearings have been printed under the title "Federal-Aid Highway Act-Hearings Before the Committee on Roads, House of Representatives, Seventy-fifth Congress, third session, on H. R. 8838."

NOT AN APPROPRIATION

This bill provides an authorization of appropriations for the fiscal years 1940 and 1941. It is not an appropriation. It, therefore, will not result in any withdrawals from the Treasury for the ensuing fiscal year to carry out its provisions. It merely continues the long-established policy of the Congress to authorize appropriations for the road program sufficiently in advance to enable the States to make their plans in accordance therewith. During the year 1939, the legislatures of 44 of the 48 States will meet in regular session, and 40 of these will not convene again for 2 years thereafter. The legislative sessions. in many of the States are for very limited periods. It, therefore, is obvious that in order to continue the regular Federal-aid program of road construction in cooperation with the States without interruption it is essential that this bill be acted upon at this session of the Congress.

FEDERAL-AID HIGHWAY SYSTEM

Section 1 of the bill provides an authorization of $125,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1940, and $125,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1941, for expenditure on the system of Federal-aid highways. Like amounts were authorized for each of the 4 fiscal years 1936 to 1939, both inclusive.

Only a little more than one-half of the 444,000 miles of roads on our State highway systems have been given any all-weather surface, and only 27 percent of this mileage has been paved, according to testimony before the committee. With the steadily increasing use of and dependence on our public highways, the need for a continuous program of construction is obvious. Also impressive testimony was presented at the hearings as to the extent to which highways on the State highway systems need to be rebuilt, widened, or relocated. It was shown that many miles of these highways, aggregating approximately 22 percent of the total mileage of the State highway systems, are now obsolete or inadequate for the volume of traffic which they are required to carry. It was also shown that approximately 20,000 bridges on these highways should be widened or rebuilt. The estimate submitted as to the cost of this revamping of portions of the State highway systems was over three and a half billion dollars. It was urged that the needs were for greater appropriations than the authorizations proposed by the bill, but it was the view of the committee that we should adhere to the program which we have had for the last several years. The committee, therefore, was not willing to recomment authorizations for this item in greater amounts for the years 1940 and 1941 than those authorized for the 4 preceding fiscal years. Subsection (a) of this section provides that all sums authorized and apportioned to the States shall be available for expenditure for 1 year after the close of the fiscal year for which such sums are authorized. This provision is designed to be permanent legislation and to apply not only to the authorizations made in this bill but to any subsequent authorizations that may be made. It also applies to the funds authorized by this bill, or which hereafter may be authorized, for secondary or feeder roads and for the elimination of hazards to life at railroad grade crossings.

The District of Columbia, under subsection (b), would be entitled to share in the apportionment of all sums authorized by the bill and in subsequent authorizations for apportionment among the States, upon the same terms and conditions as any of the several States. This provision is similar to the bill (S. 978) passed by the Senate on April 7, 1937, to extend the provisions of the Federal-aid road legislation to the District of Columbia. It is also similar to the bills heretofore enacted for the purpose of extending the benefits of the Federal-aid road legislation to the Territory of Hawaii and to the Island of Puerto Rico.

Subsection (c) provides definite authorization for including as a part of highway construction by the States with the aid of Federal funds such roadside and landscape development as may be approved by the Secretary of Agriculture. Such roadside development would be confined within the highway right-of-way and adjacent publicly owned or controlled recreational areas of limited size. The committee considers this a very desirable feature of highway improvement.

The act of June 16, 1936 (49 Stat. 1519), made provision in subsection (d) of section 1 which permitted the use of Federal funds without matching by State funds in States which were using all of their income from gasoline taxes, motor-vehicle license fees, and road-user special taxes for highway purposes, other than construction, and were stil unable to meet in whole or in part their Federal-aid apportionments for the fiscal years 1936 and 1937. Subsection (d) of this bill would make similar provision with respect to States similarly situated for the fiscal years 1938 and 1939.

Subsection (e) would extend the definition of the term "highway" to include that portion of any interstate or international bridge, and approaches thereto, the cost of which may be assumed by the State highway departments. In the case of international bridges this would include such facilities as may be required by the United States Customs and Immigration Services in connection with the operation of such bridges.

SECONDARY OR FEEDER ROADS

Section 2 continues the policy established by the act of June 16, 1936 (49 Stat. 1519), of authorizing Federal aid to secondary or feeder roads, including farm-to-market roads, rural free-delivery mail roads, and public-school bus routes. This section provides for this purpose an authorization of $25,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1940, and $25,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1941. These funds will be apportioned among the several States in the same manner as the regular Federal-aid funds are apportioned. The work will be carried out under the direction of the State highway departments and the Federal funds must be matched.

The amounts are the same as were authorized for this class of roads for each of the fiscal years 1938 and 1939. The committee recognized the fact that large sums are being expended by the Works Progress Administration on roads, most of which are of the secondary or farmto-market class. It, therefore, in spite of the vast mileage of secondary roads needing improvement, deemed it inadvisable to recommend any increase in the authorization for this class of roads at this time.

ELIMINATION OF HAZARDS TO LIFE AT RAILROAD GRADE CROSSINGS

Section 3 continues the provision for elimination of hazards to life at railroad grade crossings on the Federal-aid highway system and authorizes an appropriation of $50,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1940, and the same amount for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1941. Like amounts were authorized for this purpose for each of the fiscal years 1938 and 1939. These funds are to be apportioned in the same manner as provided in section 8 of the act of June 16, 1936; that is, one-half on population; one-fourth on the mileage of the Federal-aid highway system, as determined by the Secretary of Agriculture; and one-fourth on the railroad mileage, as determined by the Interstate Commerce Commission. They are to be expended in accordance with the provisions of the Federal Highway Act, except that the States are not required to match them. The States and the railroads must assume all costs for rights-of-way and property damages, which are relatively high in the case of some projects.

Although much remains to be done, gratifying progress has been made in this important work with the use of both emergency and