amount of money to be expended out of the treasury of the city in public work in each borough made it proper that the boroughs should have a direct representation on the Board.

The Commission has therefore recommended that the Board of Estimate and Apportionment shall be composed purely of elective officers, viz.: The Mayor, the Comptroller and the President of the Board of Aldermen, elected by the City at large, and of the Presidents of the five boroughs, elected by the citizens of their localities. But in adding the Borough Presidents to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment another question required consideration. If the Borough Presidents were to possess a voting power, not only equal to that of each other but also to that of the other members of the Board, they might together control its decisions; and this would mean that the financial control of the City. would pass from the officials who are not directly interested in the spending of the City's money to officers at the head of great administrative agencies and charged with the duty of spending large sums in the development and improvement of the particular localities they were elected to represent. It therefore seemed essential that the total voting power of the five Borough Presidents should be less than that of the officers elected from the City at large; and it was not thought just to give to the representatives of the smaller boroughs an equal vote with the Presidents of the two great Boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

What should be the representation of the different elements in the Board of Estimate and Apportionment has been one of the most difficult questions which the Commission has had to answer. We propose to give three votes to each of the officers elected at large; two votes each to the Presidents of the Boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn; and one vote each. to the Presidents of The Bronx, Queens and Richmond. will be perceived that the total number of votes in the Board will be sixteen, and that nine of these votes will be cast by the officers elected at large, assuring to them a control of the Board.

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BOROUGH PRESIDENTS AND LOCAL BOARDS.

If the changes proposed are adopted, the President of a Borough will have a very different position from that which he now has. He will have charge, first, of the Highway and Sewer administration; second, of matters now administered in the Department of Buildings; third, of all existing public buildings and of the erection of new public buildings; fourth, of the making of the topographical map of his Borough, which is the necessary prerequisite of all local improvements; and, fifth, in the Boroughs of Queens and Richmond, of the cleaning of the streets. He will also, as a member of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, have a voice upon all of the many matters coming before that Board affecting the interests of the City as a whole.

The Local Improvement Boards are also made more important than formerly. The districts over which they have jurisdiction are made permanent so that district neighborhood feeling may be maintained and promoted. The present method of division by Senatorial Districts is adhered to with very few exceptions, and the Districts are given permanent names-names which have in most cases historical significance-instead of being merely numbered. It is also provided that the boundaries of these Districts shall not be changed with the periodical apportionments of Senatorial Districts.

BOND ISSUES AND FRANCHISES.

The action of the Municipal Assembly in respect to bond issues has been justly subjected to much criticism. No matter for what purpose the City is compelled to borrow money, the issue of bonds must at present be approved by a vote of three-fourths of all the members elected to each branch of the Municipal Assembly. The power to obstruct such issues thus resides in a very small minority of each House; and even where the money must be raised in order to pay the lawful

creditors of the City, the power of obstruction has been not always used for proper purposes.

The Commission proposes that the power to issue bonds in all cases where there is no real discretion as to such issue-such as for refunding purposes and paying awards in condemnation suitsand in a few cases where experience has shown that money must be borrowed yearly to meet the necessities of the growing citysuch as for new school-houses and extensions of the docksshould be vested in the Board of Estimate and Apportionment alone. In other cases the proposed amendments provide what is in effect a veto power of the Board of Aldermen, to be expresssed by the vote of a majority of all the members. It is further provided that any action in this regard must be taken by the Board of Aldermen within six weeks after the receipt of a copy of the resolution of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment authorizing the proposed bond

issue.

The reason for authorizing the Board of Estimate and Apportionment to issue bonds is in part to make it easier than at present to carry on the current administration of the City's affairs, even if the expense is to be defrayed by the borrowing of money instead of by annual taxation. Experience has amply shown that the necessary yearly extension of the water distributing system, due to the steady growth of the City, requires the expenditure of a certain amount of money year. The policy of the City in the past has properly been to defray this expenditure out of the proceeds of the sale of bonds. This is a wise and businesslike course, because the undertaking is merely an extension of a business which results in almost immediate profit to the City. If the City is to grow, such work must be done, and if the question were to be submitted year by year to the Board of Aldermen for its approval, the issue of bonds might be unnecessarily delayed without any compensating advantages.

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The amendments proposed will thus by the action of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment on the one hand enable the City to raise money promptly for its ordinary necessities; while on the other hand the Board of Aldermen is fully empowered to discuss and, if it chooses, to prohibit loans which are not of a routine character. The questions as to borrowing money for all new undertakings are thus made to fall within the range of the powers of the entire legislative body of the City.

Grants of franchises, which have also been unreasonably delayed by the present Municipal Assembly, must in like manner by our plan be acted upon within six weeks after the Board of Estimate and Apportionment frames the proposed legislation.

Special attention may be called to the changes effected in Section 73 of the Charter, where by the transposition of sentences important restrictions are imposed upon any grant of tunnel railroad franchises.

Attention is also called to a matter of relatively minor importance. At the present time provisions relating to the power to grant licenses to establish and operate omnibus or stage lines in any part of the city are obscure and doubtful. They are contained in five sections of the Charter, scattered in various parts. We recommend that these be consolidated into one section, that the procedure in reference to a grant of such license be assimilated to that in case of grants of street franchises, and that reasonable and proper compensation be paid to the City. For some reason the Transportation Law now prohibits the incorporation of companies within The City of New York for such purposes. We can perceive no good reason for this prohibition. On the contrary, the Commission is of opinion that it may be to the interest of many parts of the city, under modern conditions, to facilitate the establishment of omnibus lines, and we therefore recommend that the exception in the Transportation Law be repealed.

FINANCES AND TAXATION.

The Commission has been strongly urged by important interests to deal with the question of taxation in The City of New York. Unjust and unequal as taxation in a great city under the present law necessarily is, and harshly as the burden. of taxes on personal property now often falls, the Commission has felt that the subject was one which could only be adequately dealt with by legislation affecting the entire state. It has therefore confined itself solely to proposing some amendments of minor importance in connection with the mode of assessing and collecting taxes in The City of New York; among others, one giving the right of inspection by the public of the list showing the taxation of personal property. The date when the annual taxes become a lien-heretofore a matter of uncertainty, and therefore of inconvenience to real estate interests-has been definitely fixed at the first Monday in October.

The organization and powers of the Finance Department of the City are left substantially unchanged except in one particular. Under the present Charter it is held that each head of a department is authorized to bind the City absolutely for specific amounts for supplies purchased, or other liabilities incurred. No matter how excessive these charges may be, the Department of Finance possesses no power to dispute or reduce them, unless it can establish fraud-always a very difficult task. This has been corrected, and the Department of Finance is given substantial powers of audit and adjustment, subject, however, to a proper preservation of the rights of the City's creditors.

The management of the finances of the Departments of Police and Education, except pension funds, has been placed in the Department of Finance.

The Comptroller, at the present time, receives a salary of $10,000, and in addition receives a much larger amount as a percentage upon the collections made under the Transfer Tax.