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apportioned among the different improvements at the discretion of the Minister of Public Works. When new projects are undertaken, the total cost and the time required for their com pletion are approximately determined, and thereafter appropriations are made regularly in accordance with that determination, and without further discussion, unless some unforeseen contingency should make it necessary to ask for larger appropriations than usual.

The advantages of such a system are self-evident. No project is undertaken without the fullest possible investigation and consideration, not by a single engineer, or even by a few temporarily detailed for the service, but by resident engineers upon the ground familiar with every detail, by all the higher officials of the department, and finally by its responsible head. Every project is in this way passed upon by men who have made engineering their life work, and who, by training and practical experience, have become fitted to achieve distinction in that work. No single engineer with a hobby, or an ardent desire to experiment on some new theory at the public expense, can secure an opportunity to carry out his individual ideas, unless they commend themselves to his associates. Local or sectional interests have no effect in influencing the final decision of so large a body of trained experts, occupying secure and independent official positions; and the action of the department in reference to any proposed improvement represents the deliberate opinion and best professional judgment of the entire body.

In this lies the great and especial value of the foreign systems. Every step is taken advisedly. Every precaution is taken to guard against individual errors of judgment. Works once begun are prosecuted steadily to completion, without the wasteful delays and interruptions so frequent in this country. Whatever is done is done well; everything that is done counts. Similar results could undoubtedly be secured in this country by the adoption of similar methods, and the advantages to be gained make the experiment worth the trial.

Bills are now pending in both branches of Congress having this purpose in view. They provide for the organization of a civil bureau in the War Department, to be especially charged

with all work in connection with harbors and water-ways. It is proposed that the country be divided into departments, with a number of divisions in each; with division and department boards, and over all an advisory board; all reports to be passed upon by these respective boards. Provision is made for securing full reports from the officers in charge of local improvements, from each division engineer as to the commercial needs of his division in the matter of improvements, and from each department engineer as to the needs of his department; the advisory board to report upon them all in their national relations, and to recommend such improvements as are deemed most desirable.

These measures were prepared by an authorized committee representing over three thousand civil engineers, who have been engaged for several years in discussing at their meetings the evils of the present situation, and in seeking a remedy. The bills have been attacked by the army engineers, who have raised the usual cry of the "ins"—that the "outs" simply want places. But the personal interests or desires of neither class of engineers should cut any figure in the consideration of the subject. The army men assert that the organization of a special bureau, as proposed, would unnecessarily enlarge our already immense official establishment, and say, in substance, in their petition, that any change which interferes with their present powers and privileges would be disastrous to commerce.

However that may be, the fact remains that the engineer corps is essentially a military organization; that its officers receive a military training, and have military duties to perform; and that the supervision of river and harbor works is not their regular duty, but is an incidental service. The officers detailed by the Secretary of War to take charge of river and harbor works are really upon detached service. Their employment in such service is not permanent, and transfers from it to military duties are frequent. Their duties and their authority are not defined by Congress, and the result of their anomalous position is, that Congress receives from them nothing in the way of information or recommendations except what is specifically called for. For these and other reasons a reorganization of the engineer corps or the creation of a new corps is necessary. What

is requisite is a permanent agency, with its work and duties. clearly marked out by Congress. It matters not whether it is composed of military or civil engineers, or both; the main thing to be done is to set in motion machinery designed especially for the performance of the work it will be called upon to do, instead of trusting to machinery designed for a different class of work.

It is improbable that such reforms can easily be effected. Important as they are to the interests of commerce and good government, and to an orderly administration of public affairs, they may be, as many other matters necessarily are, overlooked by Congress until public opinion is aroused upon the subject and demands action; but time and discussion will eventually bring these necessary changes in our national policy with respect to public works.

SHELBY M. CULLOM.

OBJECTIONS TO HIGH LICENSE.

LET me premise that I have no objection to license legislation in general as a method of dealing with the abuses of the liquor traffic. Intelligently devised, and faithfully administered, I regard it as the most effectively useful form of liquor legislation. The so-called "prohibitory " laws I hold to be vicious in principle, and, on the large scale and in the long run, demonstrably unsuccessful in practice. For a fuller statement and defense of these opinions I may be permitted to refer to two articles, on “Prohibition, So-called," and on "The Alternative of Prohibition," in the FORUM for November and December, 1886. When I add that I hold no principle, either as citizen or as churchman, that forbids me to accept and maintain (to use the Scripture phrase) "laws that are not good," when they are the most practically useful for the time, it will be admitted that I come to the discussion of this subject free from any disqualifying prejudices.

Let me put this question at the outset of the discussion: Is there any good reason why licenses to sell intoxicating liquors should be sold, at any price, whether low or high? A license to conduct this business is, according to the proper conception of license legislation, a trust committed to a discreet person to be exercised for the public good. The business is indispensable to civilized society. The most violent reformers admit this, and embody in what they humorously style their" prohibitory "laws a provision that the business shall be conducted by public officers appointed for the purpose. One favorite and effectual device for defeating the operation of a prohibitory law is to defeat the provision for a liquor agency. It is perfectly well understood by the enemies of the public morals that, if no provision whatever is made for necessary sales of liquor, the law at once becomes a dead letter. That which a prohibitory law accomplishes by organizing official State liquor shops, a license.

law proposes to accomplish by issuing permits to exceptional individuals. In both cases the law is commonly enough perverted from its intention, and the "town liquor agency," or the licensed liquor shop, becomes the source of a great deal of mischief. But none the less the intention of the law is, in either case, an honest and right intention, to protect society from the immense mischiefs incident to the indiscriminate sale of liquors.

Now, there is a very powerful combination of influences at work, in seeming antagonism, but in real and mischievous harmony, to sophisticate the popular, the legal, and even the judicial mind on the meaning of a license law. The monstrous and multitudinous crew of depraved and guilty wretches who, all over the land, delight to engage in the business of keeping tippling houses for gain, and who make the business profitable just in proportion as they are unprincipled and unscrupulous, strenuously hold that a license law is simply a device for collecting revenue, and that every scoundrel of them has a right to pay his fee and take his license, unless some specific disqualification is proved against him. And the same view of the law is advocated with equal earnestness by a small political party which favors a different device of legislation, and which is not ashamed to cooperate with the rum-selling fraternity in putting their desired interpretation on the license law, in hope that thus good citizens will be driven to vote the prohibition ticket.

Now, it is of high importance to the clear understanding and well working of a liquor license law, that it should contain no provision whatever for a license fee, whether large or small. The law ought to show on the face of it, not only that it is not solely or mainly for the purpose of revenue, but that revenue is no part of the object of it. This is important, not only to silence

* A curious illustration of the power of a word is found in the "prohibitory" law of one of the western States; Iowa, I believe. It contains (if it is still extant) a provision under which "permits" may be issued to sell liquors for necessary uses. In other words, it is nothing in the world but a license law. But the "prohibitionists" who devised it will be shocked to discover the fact.

+ Friends of temperance in Portland, Maine, have sometimes denounced the town liquor agency as "the worst grogshop in Portland -a very strong expression, as the Portland grogshops are notoriously very bad.

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