nditions and to all proposed remedies,
and will doubtless suggest one that will meet the requirements of
business and of public interest.

We may hope that the report will embody neither the narrow dew of those
who believe that the sole purpose of the new system should be to secure
a large return on banking capital or of those who would have greater
expansion of currency with little regard to provisions for its immediate
redemption or ultimate security. There is no subject of economic
discussion so intricate and so likely to evoke differing views and
dogmatic statements as this one. The commission, in studying the general
influence of currency on business and of business on currency, have
wisely extended their investigations in European banking and monetary
methods. The information that they have derived from such experts as
they have found abroad will undoubtedly be found helpful in the solution
of the difficult problem they have in hand.

The incoming Congress should promptly fulfill the promise of the
Republican platform and pass a proper postal savings bank bill. It will
not be unwise or excessive paternalism. The promise to repay by the
Government will furnish an inducement to savings deposits which private
enterprise can not supply and at such a low rate of interest as not to
withdraw custom from existing banks. It will substantially increase the
funds available for investment as capital in useful enterprises. It will
furnish absolute security which makes the proposed scheme of government
guaranty of deposits so alluring, without its pernicious results.

I sincerely hope that the incoming Congress will be alive, as it should
be, to the importance of our foreign trade and of encouraging it in
every way feasible. The possibility of increasing this trade in the
Orient, in the Philippines, and in South America are known to everyone
who has given the matter attention. The direct effect of free trade
between this country and the Philippines will be marked upon our
sales of cottons, agricultural machinery, and other manufactures. The
necessity of the establishment of direct lines of steamers between North
and South America has been brought to the attention of Congress by my
predecessor and by Mr. Root before and after his noteworthy visit to
that continent, and I sincerely hope that Congress may be induced to see
the wisdom of a tentative effort to establish such lines by the use of
mail subsidies.

The importance of