reason. Such walls are needed on every one of the canals to a greater or less degree. Many of the old walls have been poorly built and should be promptly repaired. There are also many places where paving on the outer slopes of the banks is as necessary as retaining walls, to protect against the washing of adjacent streams.

I can only answer this inquiry by saying that in my judgment $1,000,000 could be used to good advantage.

Respectfully submitted,

C. W. ADAMS, State Engineer and Surveyor.

MINORITY REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON CANALS.

To the Constitutional Convention :

The undersigned, members of the Committee on Canals, believing that the present commercial supremacy of the State of New York is largely due to the construction of the canals connecting the great natural waterways of the State and nation, and that a continuance of the exalted position of this State and of its various ports among the commercial centers of the world will depend in a large measure upon the proper improvement and maintenance of its artificial waterways, do hereby respectfully present the following as a minority report:

First. They are of the opinion that it would be for the best interests of the State to further deepen the more important canals belonging to the State.

Secondly. The constitutional limitation of debt of the State to the sum of one million dollars should be removed, insofar as it might prevent the maintenance, repairs and improvement of the canals, consistent with the most effectual service they might with reasonable expenditure be made capable of.

Thirdly. It should be made incumbent upon the Legislature to provide at least for the restoration of the canals, so that they may be made to give at least the full service originally intended; for their immediate improvement with that end in view; and, also, for the lengthening of locks on the Erie and Oswego canals. Provisions should be made for the issuance of bonds sufficient for that purpose, the amount and character of which should be

within just and proper limits, and which should be issued in a manner so as to spread the cost of improvement over a number of years.

Respectfully submitted.

NICOLL FLOYD.

FREDERICK FRASER.
ARTHUR D. WILLIAMS.
ADOPLH C. HOTTENROTH.

While it is the opinion of the undersigned that the canals should be improved, it is their opinion, also, that the Legislature should have discretionary power as to the scope of the improve ments, and to provide the necessary funds.

JAS. S. PORTER.
STEPHEN S. BLAKE.

G. W. CLARK.

G. L. DANFORTH.

W. H. BAKER.

CITIES.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON CITIES ON THE SUBJECT OF HOME RULE FOR CITIES, IN CONNECTION WITH GENERAL ORDER No. 12.

MAJORITY REPORT.

The Committee on Cities reports herewith, a proposed new article on the Constitution. They have still before them the important subjects of franchises, debt limitation and other matters which the Convention have referred to them, the consideration of which is not necessary to the matter herewith presented. They will report further on these subjects at an early day. Your committee have freely availed themselves of the suggestions as to home rule contained in the propositions submitted by Mr. Holls (No. 3), by Mr. Dean (No. 22), by Mr. Speer (No. 299), by Mr. Tucker (No. 113), by Mr. Turner (No. 139), by Mr. Cady (No. 267), by Mr. Tekulsky (No. 320), by Mr. Green (No. 370), and the proposition prepared by the Citizens' Committee, known as the Committee of Twenty-one, and presented by Mr. C. H. Lewis (No. 127), as well as the propositions submitted to the committee by Mr. Low, formerly mayor of Brooklyn, and Mr. Banks, formerly mayor of Albany.

Your committee report the proposed article as a result of their deliberations on the entire subject treated in those propositions.

Your committee, from the first, have regarded the subject as very difficult and of very great importance; they have sought the advice and aid of other members of the Convention, have invited the mayors of all cities to be heard, and mailed to all such mayors, in addition to other matter, the draft of their proposed article, which, about ten days ago, was printed, published and distributed. They have proceeded carefully and slowly, and with care and deliberation have reached the conclusions presented by the article.

Apart from the provisions of section 11 of article 8 of the present Constitution (which affects cities only as to the debt

limit, and the purposes and rate of taxation), the provisions of the present Constitution relating to cities are a single sentence in section 9 of article 8, making it the duty of the Legislature to provide for the organization of cities; and section 2 of article 10, providing that all city officers whose election or appointment is not otherwise provided for by the Constitution shall be elected by the electors of the city, or appointed by such authorities thereof as the Legislature may determine. These are the provisions adopted by the Constitutional Convention of 1846-fortyeight years ago. At that time the population of the State (hundreds omitted) was 2,604,000; that of New York city was 371,000, while the population of all the cities of the State was but 573,000, or about twenty-two per cent, a little over one-fifth, of the entire population of the State. Now, the population of the State, according to the last State census, is 6,513,000; the popu lation of New York city is 1,801,000; the population of Brooklyn is 995,000, and the population of all of the cities of the State is 3,987,000, exceeding by fifty per cent the entire population of the State forty-eight years ago, and constituting sixty-one per cent of the present population of the State. By chapter 64 of the Laws of 1894, provision was made looking toward the con solidation into the Greater New York of the present cities of New York, Brooklyn, Long Island City, a considerable portion of Queens and Westchester counties and all of Richmond county. If the present cities of New York and Brooklyn, and the adjacent territory proposed to be included, are combined in the Greater New York, that city will start with a population of 3,000,000; and it is within the limits of reasonable anticipation and forethought that, before the time fixed for another Constitutional Convention, there will be 5,000,000 people residing in that great city under a single municipal administration. Outside of and beyond that are the great cities on the lakes; one, according to the last State census, with 278,000 and one with 144,000 population; the Capital city with a population of 97,000; the contiguous city of Troy with a population of 64,000; Syracuse with about 92,000, and twenty-eight smaller cities, all with the just expecta tion of continued development and growth.

Never before in the history of the world have such prodigious aggregations of people been gathered in cities. Practically it is in this country alone that the great problems they present are to be solved by popular representative government under a written constitution.

To correctly present to the Convention the reasons for the amendments proposed, your committee deem it necessary to state what they regard as the more prominent facts in relation to the present government of cities.

We now have general laws as to counties, towns and highways. By those laws systems intended to be complete for the government of towns and counties were provided. The germ of those laws is town and county boards clothed with full power to decide what the town or county will or will not do as to its own local affairs. That body in the county is the board of supervisors, and in the town the town board and highway commissioners. These boards, consisting of elected officers, have powers of determination and decision, which are aptly designated as powers of local legislation. In cities, so far as such powers of local legislation have been granted, they have been vested in elective bodies, usually designated as the common council. In many cities, certainly in the larger, no power of local legislation or determination at all equal to that vested in town boards or boards of supervisors is so vested. In New York city—almost as large of itself as the other thirty-five cities of the State-the power of local legislation has almost entirely disappeared from the frame-work of city government. In that city, so far as your committee can learn, the common council has no essential part in the raising of taxes, the appropriation of money, or in any important function or detail of city government. The government of that city is by boards, appointed by the mayor, and at the present time holding office for terms which will not expire until after the term of the next mayor, yet to be elected. Unless present laws are changed, the next mayor of New York will practically be without power, and his principal duties will be to attend meetings of boards where he may be outvoted by associates appointed by the previous mayor, and who will hold office after his successor is installed. Such government is not government by the people; it is not representative government.

As practiced, the entire system of government for cities lacks the principle of direct responsibility. Laws as to matters purely local come from Albany, but the whole power of the State government cannot appoint a single officer to execute the law. Between these two authorities, operating from different ends on different lines, the practical responsibility of the official to the people disappears. If anything goes wrong, the local official may, and does, say that it was the fault of the Legislature, and

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