The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1910-08-05
WASHINGTON LETTER.

ed at various points throughout the
country on October I. They will prob.
ably be tried first in postoffices Of the sec
ond and third classes, and not in those of
the FIRST, as originally planned.
The departmental committee will rec
ommend to the trustees, who are the
Postmaster General, Attorney General
and Secretary of the Treasury, that a
postal bank be established at first in each
|ofthe AZ States.
The interest in the Government banks
is growing every day. Three hundred
post-ofices have asked to have the banks,
and ga State and national banks have
sentin requests to be made Repositories
for the funds.
One reason for selecting the smaller
postoffices 10 which TO try ont the new
banks is that Congress gave the trustees
only $Ioo, 600 to meet the expense of put
ting the Law into operation. This is ex-
pected, however, to be sufficient for the
present year under the plan to be adopted.
~
The collection of statistics relative TO
the manufactures of Maryland has been
completed. and the first announcement
concerning the result will probably be
Forthcoming from the Census Bureau in
August, The data were collected under
the direction of Mandel Sener, chief
special agent in Baltimore.
The statistics of manufactures are taken
every five years. The last figures for Bal
timore were gathered in 1905 for the year
1904, and those just collected are for the
year 1909. The division of manufactures
put 1900 special agents in the field for
the collection of this information, and 70
clerks were detailed from the Washing
ton Office.
Nv
Automobile owners, farmers and others
who make daily use of some part of the
1000, 900 miles of public highways in the
United States will follow closely the pro-
ceedings Of the second International Road
Congress which opened il Brussels this
week and will continue until August 10.
The reason for the unusual interest in the
affair at the Belgium capital is the fact
that the American delegates enter the
congress hopeful that il will be possible to
bring next years meeting to this country,
and if they are successful the third con-
vention of road experts of all nations will
be held in Washington next fall.
The first International Road Congress,
which was called by the President of
France last year, and held in Paris, was
attended by the representatives of az
Governments, and il is expected that the
attendance at this years meeting will be
even larger.
Motorists of every country of the world
are interested in the meeting because the
congress is the outgrowth of individual
work of the leading governments to i'm
prove the public highways and meet the
conditions brought by increased automo-
bile traffic. The principles of road con-
struction to meet the swish and wear of
rubber tires are different from those in
building the road designed to stand the
impact of horses shod hoofs and steel
tires. Up to this time very limited study
has been given to this new road problem.
This country has the most tremendous
system of highways of any nation of the
world, the length of all the roads amount
ing 70 Ass, 900 miles, on which it is es-
timated that there is an annual expendi-
ture of 500. 900, 600. England, with her
little system of 10000 miles of road,
spends about $50, ooo, 900 year. or about
IA times as much per mile on roads.
The agricultural as well as the automo-
bile interests will by looked after by the
American delegates who attend the
Brussels Congress during the coming 10
days. The farmers of the United States
are spending about two and half times
as much TO get their products to the
market as are the farmers of Europe, and
this important difference in cost of haul
ing over bad and good roads is playing its
part in the cost. of-living problem. Con-
servation of farm resources will mean
little if the problems Of cheap Transports
ton of products to market are not solved.
The remarkable growth of the automo-
bile industry and the increased use Of
,uotor-cars both for business and pleasure
have proven great stimulus to the study
and work for better roads in this country.