injunction or order is extended or renewed after previous notice and opportunity to be heard.

My judgment is that the passage of such an act which really embodies the best practice in equity and is very like the rule now in force in some courts will prevent the issuing of ill-advised orders of injunction without notice and will render such orders when issued much less objectionable by the short time in which they may remain effective.

ANTI-TRUST AND INTERSTATE COMMERCE LAWS.

The jurisdiction of the General Government over interstate commerce has led to the passage of the so-called "Sherman Anti-trust Law" and the "Interstate Commerce Law" and its amendments. The developments in the operation of those laws, as shown by indictments, trials, judicial decisions, and other sources of information, call for a discussion and some suggestions as to amendments. These I prefer to embody in a special message instead of including them in the present communication, and I shall avail myself of the first convenient opportunity to bring these subjects to the attention of Congress.

JAIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

My predecessor transmitted to the Congress a special message on January 11, 1909, accompanying the report of Commissioners theretofore appointed to investigate the jail, workhouse, etc., in the District of Columbia, in which he directed attention to the report as setting forth vividly, "the really outrageous conditions in the workhouse and jail."

The Congress has taken action in pursuance of the recommendations of that report and of the President, to the extent of appropriating funds and enacting the necessary legislation for the establishment of a workhouse and reformatory. No action, however, has been taken by the Congress with respect to the jail, the conditions of which are still antiquated and insanitary. I earnestly recommend the passage of a sufficient appropriation to enable a thorough remodeling of that institution to be made without delay. It is a reproach to the National Government that almost under the shadow of the Capitol Dome prisoners should be confined in a building destitute of the ordinary decent appliances requisite to cleanliness and sanitary conditions.

POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT. SECOND-CLASS MAIL MATTER.

The deficit every year in the Post-Office Department is largely caused by the low rate of postage of 1 cent a pound charged on second-class mail matter, which includes not only newspapers, but magazines and miscellaneous periodicals. The actual loss growing out of the transmission of this second-class mail matter at 1 cent a pound amounts to about $63,000,000 a year. The average cost of the transportation of this matter is more than 9 cents a pound.

It appears that the average distance over which newspapers are delivered to their customers is 291 miles, while the average haul of magazines is 1,049, and of miscellaneous periodicals 1,128 miles. Thus, the average haul of the magazine is three and one-half times and that of the miscellaneous periodical nearly four times the haul of the daily newspaper, yet all of them pay the same postage rate of 1 cent a pound. The statistics of 1907 show that second-class mail matter constituted 63.91 per cent. of the weight of all the mail, and yielded only 5.19 per cent. of the revenue.

The figures given are startling, and show the payment by the Government of an enormous subsidy to the newspapers, magazines, and periodicals, and Congress may well consider whether radical steps should not be taken to reduce the deficit in the Post-Office Department caused by this discrepancy between the actual cost of transportation and the compensation exacted therefor.

A great saving might be made, amounting to much more than half of the loss, by imposing upon magazines and periodicals a higher rate of postage. They are much heavier than newspapers, and contain a much higher proportion of advertising to reading matter, and the average distance of their transportation is three and a half times as great.

The total deficit for the last fiscal year in the Post-Office Department amounted to $17,500,000. The branches of its business which it did at a loss were the second-class mail service, in which the loss, as already said, was $63,000,000, and the free rural delivery, in which the loss was $28,000,000. These losses were in part offset by the profits of the letter postage and other sources of income. It would seem wise to reduce the loss upon second-class mail matter, at least to the extent of preventing a deficit in the total operations of the Post-Office.

I commend the whole subject to Congress, not unmindful of the spread of intelligence which a low charge for carrying newspapers and periodicals assists. I very much doubt, however, the wisdom of a policy which constitutes so large a subsidy and requires additional taxation to meet it.

POSTAL SAVINGS BANKS.

The second subject worthy of mention in the Post-Office Department is the real necessity and entire practicability of establishing postal savings banks. The successful party at the last election declared in favor of postal savings banks, and although the proposition finds opponents in many parts of the country, I am convinced that the people desire such banks, and am sure that when the banks are furnished they will be productive of the utmost good. The postal savings banks are not constituted for the purpose of creating competition with other banks. The rate of interest upon deposits to which they would be limited would be so small as to prevent their drawing deposits away from other banks.

I believe them to be necessary in order to offer a proper inducement to thrift and saving to a great many people of small means who do not now have banking facilities, and to whom such a system would offer an opportunity for the accumulation of capital. They will furnish a satisfactory substitute, based on sound principle and actual successful trial in nearly all the countries of the world, for the system of government guaranty of deposits now being adopted in several western States, which with deference to those who advocate it seems to me to have in it the seeds of demoralization to conservative banking and certain financial disaster. The question of how the money deposited in postal savings banks shall be invested is not free from difficulty, but I believe that a satisfactory provision for this purpose was inserted as an amendment to the bill considered by the Senate at its last session. It has been proposed to delay the consideration of legislation establishing a postal savings bank until after the report of the Monetary Commission. This report is likely to be delayed, and properly so, cause of the necessity for careful deliberation and close investigation. I do not see why the one should be tied up with the other. It is understood that the Monetary Commission have looked into the systems of banking which now prevail abroad, and have found that by a control there exercised in respect to reserves and the rates of exchange by some central authority panics are avoided. It is not apparent that a system of postal savings banks would in any way interfere with a change to such a system here. Certainly in most of the countries of Europe where control is thus exercised by a central authority, postal savings banks exist and are not thought to be inconsistent with a proper financial and banking system.

SHIP SUBSIDY.

Following the course of my distinguished predecessor, I earnestly recommend to Congress the consideration and passage of a ship subsidy bill, looking to the establishment of lines between our Atlantic seaboard and the eastern coast of South America, as well as lines from the west coast of the United States to South America. China, Japan, and the Philippines. The profits on foreign mails are perhaps a sufficient measure of the expenditures which might first be tentatively applied to this method of inducing American capital to undertake the establishment of