offices during the next financial year. The mayor shall examine such estimates and submit the same with his recommendations thereon to the city council,

which, of course, is to be done in writing, as the mayor is not a member of the board of aldermen, and is therefore not expected to be present at their meetings. All the officers and boards herein referred to, though nominated by the mayor, hold their places through confirmation by the aldermen, and though they may be nominally removed by the mayor, yet as the officer removed holds his place. till his successor is confirmed by the aldermen, this power amounts to but little. There is nothing to prevent any or all of them from asking for the largest sum they can possibly spend, and they may do so in perfect good faith. It is not uncommon for a department to have a part of its appropriation left over at the end of the year.

The estimates thus submitted are referred to the committees of the two branches of the council, which are at liberty to modify them and to add or subtract at their pleasure within the limit of taxation and debt allowed by State law. Moreover, either branch, on a report of its committees, can propose additional expenditure for any purpose at any time during the year, the only restriction being that provision for its payment must be made either out of the tax levy already ordered or by an order for borrowing. The absence of any effective check upon the executive is no less important. A mayor, or even a head of department, sufficiently skilled in lobbying, may, even without corrupt motives, involve the city in schemes of extravagant or unwise expenditure without the voters. having any knowledge of the merits of the case, or being able to fix the responsibility.

The estimates as finally concocted having passed the council are laid before the mayor. It was thought a wonderful advance in the amended charter of 1885 that the

mayor was given power to veto items of appropriation bills, instead of being obliged to accept or reject the whole. Doubtless some improvement was effected, but it was trifling compared with the evil of the whole system.

Since 1885 it has been the practice for the mayor to cut down the department estimates, and for the council to accept the reduction, but the principle upon which this has been done will appear from a message of Mayor Matthews in 1892.

It is wholly misleading, however, to consider the estimates sent in by the mayor as having been deliberately and voluntarily "cut down" from the amounts required or requested by the several departments. Ever since the enactment of the law of 1885, limiting the rate of taxation, the departments have always asked for more than they knew could be appropriated under the provisions of that law; while on the other hand the mayor has always recommended, and the city council has always voted, the full amount possible to be appropriated thereunder. The function of the mayor has, since the passage of the Act of 1885, been simply to distribute the total possible appropriation among the several departments, and he has never attempted to cut down the appropriations below the maximum amount.

In other words, the department expenditure is limited by an arbitrary total imposed from the outside, and not by any public discussion as to whether the taxpayers get full value for their money.1

The amount of expenditure having been determined upon, then for the first time the question of revenue is taken into account. As the objects and methods of taxation are determined by the State legislature, all that the

1 It is an interesting consequence of the action of the legislature that, while the city is compelled to meet the requirements of the Police Commission appointed by the State, and at the same time the rate of taxation is limited by the State, that commission may easily absorb a wholly disproportionate part of the city revenues. In fact, the whole proportion of department expenditure, as well as its application within each department, may be readily assumed to depend much less upon considerations of the general welfare than upon political influence.

city council can do is to order the raising of the required amount in a lump sum, and the order is handed over to the assessors, who have to adjust in accordance the valuation of property and the rate of taxation. When these are leaned upon too heavily there is a ready alternative in the incurring of debt, of which only the interest and perhaps a small sinking fund are felt in the annual burden. For a long time this resource was left wholly at the discretion of the city governments, but the growing alarm and outcry at the magnitude of debt led to the passage of an Act by the legislature in 1875, with subsequent modifications, limiting the amount of indebtedness which could. be incurred by a city to a certain percentage of the assessed valuation. The effect of this was that those cities which had not reached this limit at once set themselves to work to reach it by fresh expenditure, and after that, when any further outlay was needed, either to raise arbitrarily the valuation upon which the percentage of debt was to be based or to apply to the legislature for exemption from the limit in this particular case. To crown all, the legislature has itself within a few years provided for the expenditure of something like forty millions of dollars to be assessed upon the cities and towns regardless of the debt limit. The following table from the New York Commercial and Financial Chronicle, for April, 1897,1 gives the aggregate net debt of the cities of Massachusetts for several years back, together with the taxable valuation and the percentage of debt to valuation.

1 State and City Supplement.

As the valuation can be arbitrarily increased, the percentages do not necessarily tell the full story of increased relative liability. The current interest charge was $5,831,900 for the Massachusetts cities in 1896, which sum was raised by taxation. This is an amount nearly equalling the net cost of maintaining the State government only a few years ago.

Nowhere in our government do the defects of organization tell more heavily upon the quality of men brought into office than in the cities. The large sums of money and the infinite details of administration involved, the compact masses of population, the variety of interests, the extremes of wealth and poverty, and the friction between classes, all make city government more important to the people than that of the State, as the State is than the national. And this is so much the more true, that whereas between the powers of the State and national governments there is a comparatively sharp line of division, those of the State and the city are blended in an inextricable complication, the portion of the city being in fact so much as the State is inclined, or can be induced,

to part with, and being subject to resumption at any time. The executive power in the city being divided up between the mayor and two bodies which at the same time hold the legislative power, and the whole being operated by committees for legislative and largely by boards and commissions for executive work, there is no personality and no responsibility anywhere. It follows from this, that no matter how hard and disinterestedly any man may work for the public service, he can never get any credit, because the work is nominally done by an impersonal body; whereas if there is any apparent dishonesty or incapacity or negligence, no member can escape suspicion, however carefully he may avoid giving any ground for it. The result is that there is a taint connected with the very name of city office.

The moment a man becomes a member either of the aldermen or the common council, a distinct flavor of loss. of caste attaches to him. Men of inferior ability or character seek the places because their shortcomings will be divided with others, while men of higher quality avoid them for precisely the same reason. Hundreds of young

men of wealth, education, and leisure would be glad to devote themselves to the public service, but they will not engage in work where there is no reputation to be won and where it is almost certain to be lost. To the people the whole business is a game of bargain and intrigue, which they do not understand, and regard with disgust. In their voting they are and can be guided only by nominating conventions or caucuses of Republicans or Democrats, names of which the mere introduction into city politics is so absurd that the self-respecting citizen feels ashamed when he votes upon them. To charge the evils. of such a system upon universal suffrage is about as reasonable as it would be to condemn steam as a motive

force on account of frequent explosions and loss