DOCTOR GOODNOW-Look at the history of the thing.

MR. AUSTIN-I am simply asking you what your idea is, because he was a big man.

Doctor GoodNow-According to the rules of the House of Representatives in Washington, no order is in order which provides for legislation that would increase expenditures. In the case of an appropriation bill, what do they do? They will suspend the rules by unanimous vote, when the thing gets up before the House of Representatives.

MR. STIMSON-In other words, they even now have one of their rules which would do this very thing, but nullify that rule by unanimous consent?

MR. AUSTIN-That is different from providing by constitutional provision that it could not be increased except by a three-quarter vote, because they could not suspend the rules of the Constitution? DOCTOR GOODNOW-No.

MR. STIMSON-I was asking Senator Wagner the other day. what the effect had been of the provision which is in the Constitution now, which forbids any local or private legislation except by two-thirds vote. Is that an effective check now?

MR. WAGNER-No, sir. It has not any great effect upon the size of our budget.

MR. DEYO-Are measures defeated on that ground?

MR. WAGNER-I cannot recall of any.

MR. STIMSON-Or is it possible for members to obtain twothirds vote for their particular measure by courtesy, irrespective of party lines?

MR. WAGNER-I would not say courtesy, but merit.

MR. STIMSON—I will put my question in another way: Is it commonly possible for members to obtain a two-thirds vote of the House for a local or private bill which they desire regardless of party lines?

MR. WAGNER-I do not think they experience any great difficulty, because the Legislature usually relies upon the representative in that locality as to the merits of the particular proposition. There are not very many of those.

MR. STIMSON-Yes, I understand, but your experience in the Legislature, so far as it goes, would rather indicate that such a provision for a two-thirds vote does not prevent members from

getting bills passed by a two-thirds vote for a local purpose when they want it?

MR. WAGNER-Not for a local purpose. When it gets to appropriation bills there is a difference. If it required a two-thirds vote to pass the bridge bills they would-the bridge bills that were passed, and other bills, which, while they are not really local bills, that is, State branches, and for an alleged State purpose, you could not have passed any of them, because they could not. secure a two-thirds vote for very many of them. I think all the members of my party were recorded against every one of them. And those are the class of bills that Doctor Goodnow is talking about.

DOCTOR GOODNOW-I should think, just from a point of view of political expediency, that what you suggest would be a good first step to take; that is, provided something could be adopted. I think from the point of view of actual practice throughout the world, that the only way to check this extravagance is by adopting some such thing as this House of Commons Rule, 1713, but whether the people of the State would be ready for it is another proposition, and they might be willing to accept such a proposal as you make.

Of course,

MR. AUSTIN-That is the idea I had in mind. there is opposition, as well as there are a great many people who favor it. Whether the adoption of some proposition of that sort, still reserving an ultimate power in the Legislature to direct local representatives of the people, as to whether they might not remove some opposition to the introduction of a budget system

MR. STIMSON-Then the whole question would be whether it was a step which was at all effective?

MR. AUSTIN-Yes.

MR. WAGNER-On matters of appropriation I should think it would be, if you made the vote high enough.

MR. STIMSON-I mean it would not be a case where a man's desire to please another, a fellow member, in return for his pleasing you afterwards would override party considerations?

MR. WAGNER-Well, of course, human nature is human nature, and you cannot say that will eliminate that feature of legislative life, but I think it would make it more difficult than it is now to pass bills of that character.

MR. STIMSON-Have you any suggestions, Senator, as to how

high it would be necessary to have such restriction in order to be effective?

MR. WAGNER-If you want to make it effective at all I should say you should make it three-quarters, because if there are party lines and there are always party lines-it is rarely that any one party has three-quarters control of the legislature. I never remember it. So that would be quite an effective check.

MR. STIMSON-Have you, gentlemen, any further questions to ask Doctor Goodnow?

(No response.)

MR. STIMSON-Then, Doctor, I want to tell you that I am sure that my committee, and I am also sure that both committees, are very much obliged to you for coming here this long distance and giving us this very instructive talk to-day.

MR. TANNER-I move that a vote of thanks on behalf of both committees be extended to Doctor Goodnow.

Which motion was duly seconded and unanimously carried. MR. STIMSON-We thank you, Doctor Goodnow; it has been a great honor to have had you with us.

FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ENGLISH EXPERIENCE

BY DR. A. LAWRENCE LOWELL

[In view of President Lowell's special study of English government, he was requested by the Constitutional Convention Committees on the Governor and Other Officers and on Finances, Revenues, and Expenditures, to discuss with them the relation of English experience and practices to the financial problems before the convention. This discussion, held June 10, 1915, is embodied in the following pages :]

HON. HENRY L. STIMSON and HON. FREDERICK C. TANNER presided as chairmen of their respective committees.

MR. STIMSON-Will the committees kindly come to order? Gentlemen, we have the pleasure of having with us to-day Doctor Lowell, the president of Harvard University. During the course of the meetings of the Committee on Finance, as the members of that committee will remember, a question came up as to the methods of budget-making which were in practice in other countries, particularly other English-speaking countries, and, in order to get the best possible authority on those methods, it was suggested that we invite one of the greatest living American authorities on that subject.

Doctor Lowell, who is known, of course, to all of you, from his study of the governmental methods in Great Britain particularly, as well as the other countries of Europe, has kindly consented to come here and speak to us this afternoon about the methods of budget-making in England, incidentally, and also the methods by which the executive functions of that government are carried on, and classified and co-ordinated.

Doctor, the methods of these two committees have been very informal, and I understand that you would be glad to be interrupted with questions?

DR. LOWELL-I should, at any time.

MR. STIMSON—And I, therefore, suggest that if you will take the matter into your own hands and proceed in your own way on those subjects, you will probably find a good many of us will be anxious for light, and will ask you questions during the course of your remarks.

DR. LOWELL-Thank you, sir. I should like to be interrupted and asked questions, because that is the only way to get information. I am here not to give a lecture, but to give such information as anyone may desire, and I want to say, in beginning this, I want to have it clearly understood that I have no idea that any foreign methods in any government can ever be transplanted into another country and work the way they do at home; that all you can do is to get suggestions and hints. In fact, I have spent a good deal of my effort in life in trying to find out that it is impossible to transplant any institution into a new soil and expect the same fruit and yield in its new soil. You can get suggestions, but you cannot bodily transplant anything. You can merely get ideas.

The English budget system, of course, rests upon a principle that we have not in this country, and have no approach to it. That is, it rests on the system of an executive absolutely responsible to the legislature, who resigns whenever it loses the confidence of the legislature; that is, whenever an adverse vote is passed by the legislature on any important point. Of course, one must bear in mind that fact, for much pressure which the legislature exerts on the executive, and which the executive exerts on the legislature, is due to the fact that the executive has no independent origin. It is not like ours, elected by the people independently of Parliament, but is elected practically by Parliament itself, informally elected. That is, it is the leaders of the party in the House of Commons.

Now, the way in which the budget is originally devised is this: Early in the autumn the various departments make up their estimates of what they will need for the current year, and, of course, like all human things, they make up their estimate somewhat larger than they can expect to get. Any aggressive concern wants to spend more money than it has, because it feels the usefulness of it. Therefore, those first departmental estimates are somewhat larger than can be very well granted. Those estimates are submitted to the head of the department by the different