appropriation measures until after the general assembly has had an opportunity properly to consider and provide for the constructive and vital business of the state.

Aside from the powers conferred on the governor under the budget law, his constitutional veto power is unaffected. The Virginia constitution provides that "The governor shall have the power to veto any particular item or items of an appropriation bill, but the veto shall not affect the item or items to which he does not object." If the governor does not approve of a bill, or "If he approves the general purpose of any bill, but disapproves any part or parts thereof, he may return it." In the first case, a two-thirds vote, if the number of members present include a majority of the members elected to that house, is required to pass a bill over the governor's objections, or to re-insert an item in the appropriation bill after it has been vetoed by the governor. In the second case, a majority of the members present can refuse to change a bill in accordance with the governor's recommendations, whereupon the bill can be acted upon by the governor as if it were before him for the first time-i. e., he can either approve or veto the bill as he may desire.

A close study of the budget laws in the several states clearly reveals the many advantages of the system created by the Virginia law. Our law provides a simple, direct and business-like method of handling the public affairs of the state in a conservative and constructive manner. While we have under way a number of administrative reforms made necessary by the war, our budget law forms the keystone in Virginia's program for

war economy.

EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP IN A DEMOCRACY

DISCUSSION1

RICHARD S. CHILDS, President, National Short Ballot Organization: Our legislative bodies in America, both national and state, are chaotic in their management compared with the parliamentary bodies of Europe, and it is because they lack anything which can properly be described as even approaching a ministry. We think of a ministry as something that concerns countries that have kings and crowns, but we should have in this country something comparable thereto in order to give a spinal column to our legislative efforts.

Let us therefore formalize existing practice and procedure. At the present time, every governor, every president has his kitchen cabinet, composed of certain leaders of the legislative body in whom he has confidence. He deals with those men unofficially, almost in a secret manner, as if it were something of which to be ashamed. Through the medium of those trusted friends in the two houses he deals with his legislative body. Let us carry that existing and necessary practice a step further. Formalize it, set it up, with good reason behind it, as a thing to be recognized by all men, and call upon our chief executive to select from the two houses of the legislature a group of leaders who are able to work acceptably with him, and who are acceptable to the two houses of the legislature. Let him meet with this legislative cabinet once a week or as often as the work may require. Let him thus sit down with half a dozen members of the legislature and with them formulate the party policy for the session, set before the legislature its annual task and determine what bills shall be called administration bills with the prestige of the governor behind them. Let this legislative cabinet be the body to prepare and put before the legislature each year the "administration measures." Can you not see that to be a member of the governor's cabinet, this legislative cabinet, would give certain members of the legislature more authority on the floor and establish their leadership as being consistent with that of the governor? At present we have three leaderships: the governor with his messages and his power to get publicity; the leaders of the upper house; the leaders of the lower house-three separate leaderships.

Let us bring them together into a committee, consolidate them, and all three forces will gain effectiveness. It is necessary, however, that the governor should select them, and not have the individual houses elect them, because it is absolutely necessary that such a body shall be harmonious, and as the governor is a fixed point, we have to let him pick the members of such a committee from the two houses.

No legislative body has ever been a success without an arrangement

very much like that. With it, I believe we should soon get into a condition where the main measures to be put through each year would be the product of that committee, aided as it would be by all the resources of the governor's administrative staff.

Its legislation would be scientific, and against that legislation the bill that is proposed by the farmer from some remote village, written by a lawyer at home, amended and mutilated in some committee of the legislature, and jammed through one house on sentiment regardless of facts and science, would have no chance whatever. More and more the leadership would follow the main track that is created, and the rank and file of the legislature would fall into the position for which they are ideally fitted, that of being pure representatives, passing the bills in review and acting on them in accordance with the views of those they represent. That is their function. Keep them to it, and the present legislators will make good for all of us.

WILLIAM P. BURR, Corporation Counsel, New York city1: Here in the City of New York we are confronted with extraordinary conditions with regard to the questions of the subway contracts. Here is a great work practically completed, and yet threatened with abandonment unless some relief can be extended to the men who have engaged to build this great work, in view of the conditions which did not confront them at the time when the contracts were made. The increased cost of materials, the higher rates for labor must all be adjusted, or these men may go into bankruptcy, and the great project fail. That is one of the questions which come up and must be solved. Can it be solved by allowing these men to abandon the contracts, or will it be solved by continuing the contracts with the city acting as the banker to advance the money before the payments are due in order to enable them to carry on this work? So also with the railways. Shall the rates of fare be increased? Should they be increased in view of the contractual relations which have existed for years and under which the franchises were originally obtained? Will the price of gas go up because of the higher price of the commodities that go into its making? Must the general consumers meet that condition and pay the higher rate, notwithstanding the fact that the rate is fixed by statute? Must these increased expenses be met by the companies or by the citizens?

All these complex municipal questions must be met by intelligently directed public action. This can only be effected if we are alive both to the needs of our own city and the magnitude of our national task.

1In presenting the greetings of the City of New York to the National Conference on War Economy, June 5, 1918.

THE BUDGET AS AN INSTRUMENT OF POLITICAL

REFORM1

W. F. WILLOUGHBY

Director, Institute for Government Research

HE first step toward the accomplishment of any object, or the solution of any problem, is to secure a clear idea of the precise nature of the object sought, or the terms of the problem to be met. It is a remarkable fact that, great as is the attention which has been given during recent years to the subject of budgetary reform in the United States, only slowly has the full significance of this reform, or of the steps necessary for its complete accomplishment, been appreciated, even by those who have been actively promoting it.

At first, the adoption of a budgetary system was looked upon as but an improved procedure in the raising of revenue and the voting of funds for the support of the government and its various activities. The more this proposed reform has been studied, however, the more has its support become apparent. It is now seen that, if fully adopted, it will go a long way toward the removal of many of the most serious defects in our governmental machinery as at present constituted and operated, and will, therefore, profoundly affect our whole political system.

The time has fortunately passed when our system of government is looked upon as representing the last word in political organization. Though we do not question the validity of the fundamental principle of popular government upon which our political system rests, it is recognized that, notwithstanding more than a century of experience, many of the problems of making this type of government efficient still remain to be solved. Among these problems first place may be given to the following: the perfection of means through which popular control over the conduct of governmental affairs may be made effective; the more satisfactory determination of the functions of our legislative bodies in respect to the direction and control of administrative affairs; the

similar determination upon a more satisfactory basis of the function of our chief executive in administrative matters; and, as a necessary collateral problem to the last two, the determination of the relations that should exist between the chief executive and the legislature, on the one hand, and subordinate administrative officers on the other, in respect to this branch of government.

These problems have to do with those features of our government which, by almost common consent, are the least satisfactory of our political institutions, are primarily responsible for the failure of our government to give satisfactory results in practice; and, what is of direct concern to us here, are such as the establishment of a proper budgetary system, more than any other single device, will tend to solve.

It is hardly necessary to point out that the popular will cannot be intelligently formulated nor expressed unless the public has adequate means for knowing currently how governmental affairs have been conducted in the past, what are present conditions, and what program for work in the future is under consideration. Of all means for meeting this requirement none approaches a properly prepared budget in completeness and effectiveness. It at once serves to make known past operations, present conditions and future proposals; definitely locates responsibility; and furnishes means of control. Too much emphasis therefore cannot be placed upon the budget as an instrument through which realdemocracy may be achieved.

Regarding the function of the legislature in respect to conduct of administrative affairs, the conviction has been steadily growing that we have erred in making our legislative bodies boards of directors to concern themselves with the details of the activities. organization and methods of business of administrative service. The true function of the legislature should be to act as an organ of public opinion in the larger sense, and as the medium through which those concerned with the actual administration of affairs should be supervised, controlled and held to a rigid accountability for the manner in which they discharge their duties.

John Stuart Mill in his Essay on Representative Government, published in 1861, has a remarkable chapter entitled, "Of the Proper Functions of Representative Bodies." After pointing out that there is a radical distinction between controlling the business of government and actually doing it, and that the latter is