insured and lower prices consequent upon wide competition and contracts for large quantities have been obtained. Economy in clerical labor has resulted from consolidating in one division of the Department all the work relating to obtaining bids, making contracts, purchasing, issuing, and accounting for stationery and supplies. A further saving in this direction could be effected if the various contingent funds of the bureaus were consolidated into a single fund to be controlled by the Secretary's Office, thus doing away with the clerical work necessitated by the present cumbersome process of reimbursing the Department appropriation for contingent expenses from similar appropriations for those bureaus heretofore separately appropriated for. PRINTING. During the past year the Department has assumed the conduct of the relations of its bureaus (with the single exception of the Bureau of the Census) with the Government Printing Office, for the purpose of promoting promptness and uniformity in its printing and of securing accuracy and completeness of its records. A central editorial force has been organized, which, in cooperation with the editorial forces. already employed in a number of the bureaus, will endeavor to secure more uniform excellence of form and expression in the Department publications. In addition to its many other publications the Department has issued series of circulars and of decisions on appealed cases, which have been printed immediately upon their preparation so as to place them as promptly as possible in the hands of persons interested. A history of the Department and its various bureaus and offices, including the acts under which they were organized and are conducted, has been published. BOOKS AND BLANKS. The transfer of certain bureaus from the Treasury Department to this Department necessitated the division between the two departments of a great number of blank forms formerly used in the Treasury Department. This division involved the settlement of a number of difficult questions of departmental jurisdiction, and a joint commission was appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Commerce and Labor to determine the proper assignment and use of the forms in doubt. The work of this commission is now nearly completed. The transfer of these bureaus also necessitated the preparation of a number of new forms. Many forms have been consolidated, thereby eliminating unnecessary ones and reducing the cost of printing. A new catalogue of the numerous forms now used in the Department is being prepared. In the course of its compilation the forms are being revised in the interest of uniformity and simplicity, making possible a more systematic classification. All these forms are now distributed by a single division of the Department, and thus the work is greatly simplified. During the past year there have been printed and sent out to the various services of the Department over four and one-quarter million blanks and 75,000 books and pamphlets. TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE SERVICE. The Department has installed an efficient telegraph and telephone service. The question of reducing the cost of this service is being carefully considered in connection with the service in the other Departments, to the end that there may be obtained the greatest degree of efficiency with the least possible expense. BUREAU OF MANUFACTURES. The Bureau of Manufactures, authorized under the organic act, was not organized during the fiscal year covered by this report because of the insufficiency of the appropriations. BUREAU OF CORPORATIONS. The work of the Bureau of Corporations has proceeded along the lines indicated in the first annual report of the Department. The Bureau has made exhaustive examination of judicial decisions for the purpose of ascertaining fully those constitutional powers and restrictions on which present conditions are based, and also those which must be necessarily involved in any future legislation for the improvement of present legal corporate conditions. For the purpose of ascertaining and presenting in available form the legal conditions under which corporate business is being carried on in the various States material obtained from thirty States has been compiled and tabulated. In each of these States, with regard to all the more important corporations organized in the State and engaged in interstate or foreign commerce, typical either of the State's industries or of its laws, every paper or document filed or recorded concerning each corporation was examined separately, and all information relating to each corporation disclosed by the official records has been collected and compiled. There have been thus far examined and abstracted the records of over 1,500 corporations, which include the larger part of the more important industrial and commercial corporations, joint-stock companies, and corporate combinations in the United States. At the same time there has been collected the fullest possible information concerning the various systems of corporate taxation in use; whenever possible, there have been obtained statements, reports, or returns of the more important corporations; and, in addition, there has been obtained a complete list of the foreign corporations admitted to do business in the particular State, this record showing the name, capital stock, and home State of each corporation. This record furnishes a convenient clew to corporations engaged in interstate commerce. The material now collected from twenty-five States on this subject is as follows: First. Abstracts of the records of specific domestic corporations. Third. List of foreign corporations admitted to the State to do business. There is now ready for publication a compilation of the Federal and State statutes dealing with illegal industrial combinations-the so-called antitrust laws. This will afford complete information of such laws, showing in tabular and condensed form, so as to be readily available and easily comparable, their provisions, including the decisions thereunder and a digest and discussion of cases involving the commonlaw principles as to combinations in restraint of trade. The compilation on a uniform outline of insurance laws has been undertaken and completed in ten States. The Bureau has been in communication with the insurance officials of all the States, and its agents have conferred with representatives of a large number of insurance companies, officers of boards of underwriters, and insurance agents, for the purpose of obtaining the best information possible upon both the legal and the business side of insurance. If Federal control or regulation of insurance raises at the outset the question whether insurance in any of its forms is interstate commerce. The decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States have established the legal proposition that fire, life, and marine insurance, in the forms presented to the court, are not interstate commerce. this proposition be irrevocably settled, the powers of the Commissioner of Corporations in reference to insurance are merely to collect and compile such statistics and information as may be voluntarily furnished to him. It would be useless to simply duplicate the statistics already obtained by various State insurance officers. The rapid development of insurance business, its extent, the enormous amount of money and the diversity of interests involved, and the present business methods suggest that under existing conditions insurance is commerce, and may be subjected to Federal regulation through affirmative action by Congress. The whole question is receiving the most careful consideration upon both legal and economic grounds. For the purpose of laying the foundation upon which direct investigations of special corporations can be intelligently conducted, the Bureau has compiled, from sources other than the corporations themselves, all available information regarding certain leading combinations. From a careful analysis of this material it has been possible to form preliminary judgments regarding the economic and financial practices and effects of combinations in general, and to determine the lines of further special inquiry. On the basis of this general study preliminary outlines of inquiries to be addressed directly to the companies are being prepared. The results of the investigation of the beef industry, authorized by resolution of Congress, will be made the subject of a special report. The increase in appropriations requested for the Bureau is based upon the actual cost of work hitherto done and the work now in hand or contemplated. It is most strongly urged that the appropriations be granted in the form requested, for the reason that the special character of the work makes it quite impossible to now determine accurately the kind and quality of services that may be required during the coming year. Much greater economy can be exercised in the work of this Bureau if the major portion of its appropriations is in a lump sum; and greater efficiency is possible, as specially qualified men can be temporarily employed for particular investigations. BUREAU OF LABOR. In the organic act establishing this Bureau it is stated that its general design and duties "shall be to acquire and diffuse among the people of the United States useful information on subjects connected with labor, in the most general and comprehensive sense of that word, and especially upon its relation to capital, the hours of labor, the earnings of laboring men and women, and the means of promoting their material, social, intellectual, and moral prosperity.” In accordance with the general design and duties referred to, the Commissioner of Labor is specially charged to gather information with reference to the cost of producing various articles, including the wages paid in the different industries, the hours of labor, and the comparative cost of living and kind of living. It is also made his duty to ascertain what articles are controlled by trusts or other combinations of capital, business operations, or labor, and what effect such trusts or other combinations of capital, business operations, or labor have on production and prices. Among other subjects, he is further charged. to investigate the causes of and facts relating to all controversies and disputes between employers and employees which may tend to inter21301-05-2 fere with the welfare of the people of the different States. He is also authorized to make special reports on particular subjects whenever required to do so or when he shall think the subjects in his charge require it. The Commissioner of Labor reports that under these provisions of the law the Bureau has been engaged during the past year in the collection of data for its nineteenth annual report (for 1904) and in the preparation of that report. The annual report for 1903 related to the cost of living of workingmen's families and the retail prices of staple articles of food used by such families. The report for the present year relates to a subject closely allied that of rates of wages and hours of labor— and is the result of an extensive investigation among the leading manufacturing and mechanical industries of the United States covering the period from 1890 to 1903, inclusive. The investigation relating to this subject was designed to cover thoroughly the principal distinctive occupations in the leading industries belonging to this large industrial group in all sections of the country, with a view to securing data which should be entirely representative of conditions and show the trend of wages and hours of labor during the period covered. The force available for the prosecution of the work did not permit of the extension of the investigation to cover transportation, mining, agriculture, and the other great industrial groups. It was possible, however, with the force available to cover practically all of the leading manufacturing and mechanical industries, the number of industries covered being 67, while the data were secured from a total of 519 distinctive occupations in 3,429 establishments. In addition to the preparation of the nineteenth annual report the Bureau has been engaged in the collection of material with reference to convict labor, which will form the basis of its twentieth annual report (the report for 1905). The collection of data for this report has been almost completed, and it is expected that the report itself will be submitted early in the coming year. This report will relate specially to the economic features of convict labor as employed in the penitentiaries, prisons, and jails of the United States. Work will shortly be begun on the collection of data relative to strikes and lockouts in the United States, which will form the basis of the annual report for 1906. The sixteenth annual report, published in 1901, brought the facts relating to strikes and lockouts down to and including the year 1900. It is expected that the report for 1906 will cover the period from 1901 to 1905. In addition to work on the annual reports of the Bureau, a portion of its force has been engaged, pursuant to resolution of the Committee on Labor of the House of Representatives, in the collection of data |