regularly upon the opportunities for American commerce in their respective districts. These reports are forwarded by the consuls through the State Department to the Department of Commerce and Labor for publication and distribution. In addition to the information thus obtained, the Department of Commerce and Labor from time to time calls upon the consuls for special information for which inquiry has been received from merchants and manufacturers. The consular reports are issued daily in printed form, and distributed to the press, to commercial bodies, and to a limited number of individuals. It is through this service that the American commercial public is kept in close and constant touch with trade conditions and opportunities throughout the world.

Another valuable agency is the Bureau of Labor of the Department. Its investigations are not confined to conditions in the United States, but are extended to other countries and to the relations which labor conditions there bear to production and commerce and labor in the United States. The information thus obtained is published periodically and widely distributed.

Other branches of the Department's work in the interest of commerce and industry include the Light-House Establishment with its thousands of employees engaged in maintaining aids and safeguards to commerce on the coasts and inland waterways; the Coast and Geodetic Survey with its corps of skilled men engaged in surveys of our coast; the Steamboat-Inspection Service, which contributes largely to the safety of persons and capital engaged in commerce by water, both along the coast and upon the interior waterways of the country; the Bureau of Navigation, which has to do with matters relating to the shipping interests of the United States; the Bureau of Fisheries, which in promoting the development of our fresh and salt water fisheries contributes largely to the food supplies entering into the commerce of the country; the Bureau of Immigration, which protects the country against violations of the laws governing immigration; and the Bureau of Standards, which is intrusted with the care and use of the national standards of measure, with the development of methods of measurement, and with the dissemination of knowledge concerning these subjects as applied in the arts, sciences and industries.

Of the new Bureaus created by the act establishing the Depart

ment of Commerce and Labor, the Bureau of Corporations is engaged in the necessary foundation work for its duties under the law, and will eventually become a valuable agency for the extension of our domestic and foreign commerce. The Bureau of Manufactures is not yet organized, owing to lack of appropriations. Funds available in present legislation will make possible an early beginning of the work of this Bureau.

Provision was made in the estimates for this year for an appropriation to be expended under the immediate direction of the Secretary for special investigations of trade conditions at home and abroad, with the object of promoting the domestic and foreign commerce of the United States, and for other purposes. Important instruments in the promotion of trade are the agents dispatched from time to time by foreign governments to study commercial opportunities in other countries. Military and naval experts are sent abroad by our Government to report on conditions that are of interest to their respective Departments. In the daily competition of international trade there is even greater need of intelligent outposts abroad. Special agents are also required in the Department itself to inspect the branches of its services in different localities and to secure uniform, businesslike and economical methods. The need of such agents in other Departments has been met by appropriations, and there is of course a similar need in this new Department.

No appropriation has yet been made for this service, but I am convinced that when its importance is made more apparent to Congress favorable action will be taken.

In addition to the measures that have been taken for the reorganization and improvement of existing branches of the statistical service, it is proposed to establish an office for the collection and distribution of foreign-tariff information, this being one of the directions in which the Department's work can apparently be extended with great advantage. A small initial appropriation has been received for this purpose.

Nations are inclined to regulate their commercial intercourse by means of a double system of tariffs, permitting preferences through commercial treaties. The current agitation in Great Britain for a departure from traditional policy in order to increase commerce be

tween the members of the British Empire may have marked effects upon American trade and incidentally upon American labor.

The industrial and econoinic facts which accompany such movements must be closely, intelligently and unremittingly watched. A few competent employees, acting directly under the head of the Department, will suffice for this purpose. From the small expenditure proposed excellent results may be obtained. There is at present no Government office in the United States engaged systematically in the work of collecting information regarding foreign tariffs, and making that information available to our exporters. This Department has received frequent inquiries for such information, and has been impressed with the importance of providing a medium to supply it.

You have been kept advised from time to time of what the new Department is doing on these lines. Too much must not be expected in the initial months of its existence. It will cooperate with you and you must cooperate with it. There must be mutual understanding and mutual support. It will not attempt the impossible. Its sphere lies in what will be well-defined limits. It is a branch of the Federal Government, and as such must adhere strictly to the lines marked out for its jurisdiction and not inject itself into fields of private endeavor where it does not belong. It can do a great work for the commerce and industry of this country, but the results it will achieve will be measured by the foresight and the intelligence and the conservatism with which it carries on its work as one of the great agencies in the extension of our domestic and foreign trade.

The promise held out for the new Department presupposes proper equipment. As it demonstrates its usefulness, I am confident Congress will increase its appropriations to a point adequate to its needs. Like all new institutions it is bound to have its early struggles for recognition. Congress and the Chief Executive have given it work to do. Whether well or ill equipped, it will do this work in the best manner possible. It seeks nothing it should not have. It will ask for support only on its merits, but as it demonstrates its usefulness in the scheme of our Government, it will have whatever recognition and commendation it may be entitled to receive.

The new Department has to deal in a large way with great business enterprises. It has approached these problems with con

servatism and impartiality. It has some jurisdiction over the interests represented by the toilers of the country, and it will do its share in securing a recognition of labor's rights and the encouragement of better feeling and fairer dealing. It is made the statistical Department of the Government, and it will make its statistics nonpartisan, impartial, and as accurate as they can be made. It has to do with marine interests. It will advance those interests in every proper manner, and I am sure it is not heresy to state in this presence that it will lend the weight of its influence to the building up of the American merchant marine. It has supervision over the difficult problems of immigration and Chinese exclusion. There are inconsistencies in the laws relating to them. There are grave hardships constantly coming up in the execution of these laws. Not infrequently they present obstacles to the development of our commerce. But they are founded on the good old doctrine of self-preservation, and must be fairly enforced until more satisfactory legislation can be devised. These and the other problems to the solution of which the Department must give its best energies are among the most important confronting our people to-day. If the Department can do its legitimate share in their solution, if its personnel can be raised to a high standard, if its expenditures can be kept at the lowest figure consistent with good administration, if, in a word, it can be conducted as a business establishment for the advancement of business interests and for the encouragement of good feeling and better understanding between all interests having to do with our trade and industrial relations-the employer and the employee, the accumulator of wealth, and the toiler in the counting room or the shop or the factory who contributes to it-if it can be a potent force for enlightenment and progress in these busy years of the nation's development, all who have an interest in its success will feel that their confidence has not been misplaced and that they have contributed to the establishment and advancement of a factor in our national life.

In some remarks made to officials of the Department on the 1st of July, 1903, I said: "The new Department moves forward, and as it takes its place by the side of the other great executive establishments it will catch the step and the swing of their onward movement in the nation's progress and prosperity."

I am sure you will welcome the statement, which it is almost

unnecessary to make, that in all the work of the new Department, in its desire for nonpartisan and impartial and conservative action, in its contribution to the solution of the problems with which it has to deal, it has had no more sturdy friend, no more vigorous advocate, no more faithful supporter, than the strong and able and fearless man who is to-day President of the United States.

This country has taken its place in the front rank of the world's producers. It now excels any other country in the production of wheat, corn, iron and steel, coal and copper, and possesses more manufacturing establishments and a larger number of intelligent, well-paid workmen than can anywhere else be found. Our locomotives, railway cars, carriages, agricultural implements, boots and shoes, clocks, scientific instruments, telephone and telegraph instruments, and a multitude of other products which go to every quarter of the globe are a tribute to American skill and enterprise.

What I have referred to this evening are, in the main, the forces to which we may look for still further progress and development in our commercial and industrial relations, but back of them all there must be triumphant Americanism, forceful and far-seeing, ever aggressive and ever mindful of the principles upon which our national progress depends. On the integrity, and energy, and public spirit of American citizenship we may confidently rely for the future glory and prosperity of our country.

Such organizations as yours are among the most influential factors in our commercial and industrial development. I congratulate you upon what you have done; I bid you Godspeed in the good work you are yet to do.