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solutions of housing difficulties. The new organization has been able to assist the small house service bureaus in supplying first-class house plans and in being of practical help to present and prospective home builders. Through this agency the fund of information obtained by Government departments as the result of years of experience and extensive research is carried without waste motion to the families in thousands of communities. More than 250,000 copies of the pamphlet prepared by the department on How to Own your Home have been sold. Numerous private organizations whose interests are related to housing assist in the enterprise.

STREET AND HIGHWAY SAFETY

The most challenging of all wastes is the waste of human life. There is no more conspicuous example of that wastage in our modern American life than in the mounting curve of traffic accidents. During the past year the department has taken the lead in an investigation of the tremendous human and physical losses due to accidents of this kind.

With a view to bringing about a better public understanding of the gravity of the situation, and if possible finding a remedy for it, I asked police officials, highway and motor vehicle commissioners. chambers of commerce, automobile associations and manufacturers. safety-first associations, engineering associations, insurance carriers, and labor organizations to join in the formation of a number of committees to investigate the whole subject. These committees are composed of representative men from all parts of the country. As soon as they have completed their work, it is proposed to call a national conference upon the subject. The gravity of the situation is well illustrated by the fact that even as I write the Committee on Statistics has brought in a report indicating that the deaths in 1923 were not less than 22,600, the number of people injured not less than 678,000, and the total economic loss not less than $600,000,000.

TRADE ASSOCIATIONS

One of the most important agencies through which the elimination of waste may be promoted is the trade association. It is true that a small minority of these associations have been in the past used as cloaks for restraint of trade by such activities as open-price associations and other attempts to control distribution or prices. It is equally true that the vast majority of trade associations have no such purpose and do no such things. The dividing line, however. between what activities are in the public interest and what are not in the public interest is not to-day clearly defined either by the law or by court decision. In consequence of recent decisions of the courts many associations are fearful of proceeding with work of vital

public importance, and we are losing the value of much admirable activity. At the same time we are keeping alive the possibility of wrongful acts. It is imperative that some definition should be made by which an assurance of legality in proper conduct can be had, and by which illegality or improper conduct may be more vigorously attacked.

In the elimination of waste, trade associations have been among the most constructive agencies of the country, and will be far more so if the solution can be found to the above question. Their waste elimination activities extend in many directions, of which the following are but a part:

Collection and distribution of statistics as to actual production, capacity production, stocks on hand, shipments, orders on hand, cancellations, number of employees, and such other data as will enable the industry and its consumers intelligently to judge future demands and supply.

Elimination of waste and reductions in cost of production and distribution by standardizing sizes and types, eliminating excess varieties, and establishing grades and qualities, thus reducing the amount of stocks thrust upon the retailer and at the same time enabling factories to operate more regularly to stocks of standard require

ments.

Elimination of misdirected credit and aid in the collection of

accounts.

Provision for the settlement of trade disputes by arbitration. Stamping out of unfair practices and misrepresentation in business or as to goods.

Promotion of the welfare of employees, by the improvement of working conditions, sanitation, safety appliances, accident prevention, housing conditions, and matters of like character.

Economy in insurance by handling that of all members, including fire, industrial, indemnity, or group insurance.

Economies in transportation through common agencies for settlement of rate matters, classification, car supply, auditing transportation bills, and the study of competitive transportation agencies. Elimination of waste in processes by the establishment of laboratories for technical and scientific research.

Instances of the injury incurred because of lack of such activities could be recited in great numbers. Gigantic loss to the public and to the rubber and fertilizer trades in 1921 was in large measure due to the absence of statistical knowledge of stocks of raw material which had been imported into the country at that time. The instability of the bituminous coal industry, and the constant disintegration of its employers' associations through fear of the restraint-of

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trade acts, contributed directly to their refusal to enter into negotiation with the unionized miners in 1922, and bears some share of responsibility for the long strike which then ensued.

Any collective activity can be used as a smoke screen to cover conspiracy against the public interest, but that is no reason for condemning all collective activities. Just because automobiles are sometimes used by bootleggers for the illegal transportation of liquor we do not prohibit their manufacture or their legitimate use. Probably the most compelling reason for maintaining proper trade associations lies in the fact that through them small business is given facilities more or less equivalent to those which big business can accumulate for itself.

Properly directed, this kind of activity is one of the strongest forces for the maintenance of competitive action. No one would advocate any amendment to the law that would sooner or later create monopoly, price fixing, domination or unfair practices, or any of the category of collective action detrimental to public interest. There is a vast difference between the whole social conception of capital combinations against public interest and cooperative organization profoundly in public interest. The former extinguishes individualism, legitimizes and fosters monopoly, dams up our economic channels, all of which penalize the consumer and make for less effciency in production. The latter encourages individualism, fosters competition and initiative, resulting in efficient service and reasonable prices to the consumer.

Legislative definition of these matters has been given to the farmer and to labor, and I am convinced that the time has come when definition should be extended to those engaged in industry. trade, and commerce, particularly in the interest of maintaining the small business unit. The department has made definite proposals in this direction which it believes in no way open the door for illegal activities, and yet make ample provision for the maintenance of those activities which it is in the public interest to encourage.

OTHER ACTIVITIES

While elimination of waste has been the special theme of this report, I desire at this point to review briefly some of the special activities of the department in other directions.

ECONOMIES IN THE LIGHTHOUSE SERVICE

The department has been practicing what it preaches. The B of Lighthouses, for instance, awake to the possibilities of wiste elimination, has effected large economies by the installation of suse matic apparatus. During the year under review 75 attended its were changed to automatic, and 72 new automatic lights were estab

lished. Nearly half of the coast and lake lights are now automatically operated, at greatly reduced costs. For example, 15 navigational lights in New York Bay were changed to automatic during the year, effecting an annual maintenance saving of $11,000.

CONSERVATION OF COASTAL FISHERIES

The conservation of our fisheries is a matter of the utmost national importance. Many of them are threatened with extinction. Our great runs of salmon on the Atlantic coast long ago disappeared as a food supply, and the salmon of the Pacific coast were doomed until we recently called a halt on their destruction. The sturgeon fisheries of the Great Lakes have declined 98 per cent in 40 years and the sturgeon has been almost displaced on the Atlantic coast. Since 1835 the annual catch of shad in the Potomac has dropped from 22,000,000 to 600,000. In 10 years the crab fisheries of the Chesapeake and Delaware have been cut in half. Our lobster catch is less than one-third of what it was 30 years ago.

In an address before the Sixth Annual Convention of the United States Fisheries Association at Atlantic City on September 5, 1924, I summarized the situation as follows:

THE WORK ACCOMPLISHED

This

First. Congress enacted last winter Federal legislation controlling oil pollution of coastal waters by oil-burning and oil-carrying ships. measure was vital to the existence of our fisheries and the protection of our shellfish. It is only a beginning at solution of the pollution problem. Second. We secured by negotiation with Canada the Pacific coast halibut treaty and the enactment of legislation under which the two nations are now able to halt the depletion and destruction of that great fishery and to start its recuperation.

Third. Congress, after three years of controversy, enacted the Alaska salmon fisheries conservation bill, and we have to-day vigorously stopped destruction and started the rejuvenation of these fisheries.

Fourth. Congress enacted the upper Mississippi fish and game refuge bill through which the streams of the upper Mississippi will be preserved for the breeding of fish and game.

Fifth. We have had some success in bringing about cooperation between different States for the protection of fisheries.

These steps have not been accomplished without bitter opposition, part of it venal, part of it innocent, but they have been supported by every true fisherman.

THE NEXT STEPS IN CONSERVATION

The steps now before us are still more important. They are:

1. To cultivate a sense of national responsibility toward the fisheries and their maintenance; to make conservation of those priceless resources a part of the national instinct; to let the whole country understand that we can no more overfish and expect to have seafood than we can outout the growth of our forests and expect to have timber,

2. To make a vigorous attempt to restore the sturgeon, salmon, shad, lobster, crab, oyster, and clam and other littoral fisheries on the Atlantic coast.

3. To secure the prevention of pollution from sources other than ships both in coastal and inland waters.

4. To undertake the reinforcement of stocks of game fish throughout the United States.

FOREIGN RAW MATERIAL PROBLEMS

During recent years there has been increasing emphasis on the dependence of the United States upon raw materials not found within our own borders and subject to fluctuations in supply or price because of conditions over which the consumer in the United States has no control. This is especially the case in the operation of foreign monopolies. If our industries are to maintain an independent and progressive condition, they must be assured of a steady supply of raw materials at a reasonable price. The Sixty-seventh Congress recognized this situation and made an appropriation to enable this department to investigate the subject.

The work was begun in the spring of 1923 by the organization of units covering crude rubber, nitrogen, sisal, and tanning materials, as these seemed to offer the most pressing commercial problems. These investigations are either finished or well on the road to completion. Four parties were sent out to determine whether rubber could be successfully produced in competition with plantations of the Far East where the exports are under foreign monopoly control. These parties covered (1) India, Ceylon, British Malaya, and the. Dutch East Indies; (2) the Central American States, Panama, the Atrato region of Colombia, and certain parts of the coastal region of Ecuador; (3) The Amazon Basin; and (4) the southern Philippines, British North Borneo, and Sarawak. Their reports are now in course of publication or preparation. It is planned to cover twoother areas during the coming fiscal year: (1) Southern Mexico and Haiti, and (2) West Africa. The final result will give a clear indication as to whether rubber can be successfully produced nearer home and under American control.

The situation in regard to fertilizers essential to preservation of the soils of the United States has been gone into rather fully by the department. A thorough investigation of Chilean nitrate, the world's air nitrogen industry, and the nitrogen situation in various countries of Europe has been made and the results published or prepared. We are now engaged in an investigation of the potash situation and its effect upon American consumers. Similarly, we are reviewing the effect of the opening up of the phosphate deposits of North Africa.

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