STATE REPORTS ON BUILDING AND LOAN ASSOCIATIONS.

NEW YORK.

Annual Report of the Superintendent of Banks Relative to Building and Loan and Cooperative Savings and Loan Associations, for the year ending December 31, 1900. F. D. Kilburn, Superintendent of Banks.

690 pp.

This report presents lists and statistics of 14 building-lot associations and 337 building and loan associations, together with an account of certain legal questions that have assumed prominence during the year. Some attention is given to the differences in methods and results of national and local associations, and to the workings of associations making use of the divided or second-mortgage plan. The laws governing these various classes of associations are published, with recommendations as to additional legislation.

Detailed tables show assets and liabilities, receipts and disbursements, plans, general condition, etc., of each association for the year 1900. The following tables give the principal statistics in summary form. Of the 337 associations considered, 44 are national and 293 local in form of organization.

ASSETS AND LIABILITIES OF 337 ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE YEAR 1900.

RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENTS OF 337 ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE YEAR 1900.

MISCELLANEOUS STATISTICS OF 337 ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE YEAR 1900.

Comparing the two classes of associations in respect to a few of the above items, we find that national associations deducted from payments made by their members the sum of $234,161 for the maintenance of an expense or similar fund, while local associations deducted but $78 for this purpose. These amounts are 6.46 per cent and 0.01 per cent. respectively, of the amounts paid in by stockholders. The amounts collected from stockholders and credited to them as stock payments were $3,389,784 for national, and $8,078,499 for local associations. The operating expenses of the two classes were $686,978 and $289,639, respectively. The operating expenses of national asso

ciations were, therefore, 20.27 per cent of the stock payments credited to shareholders; the corresponding per cent for local associations is 3.59.

The principal items of profit of the associations are interest, premium, and rent. The sum of these items for national associations is $1,617,576, and for the local organizations $2,055,679. These amounts are 6.99 per cent and 5.63 per cent of the total assets of the respective classes of associations. While national associations thus show a somewhat higher rate of profit from these receipts, it will appear by comparing operating expenses with the sum of these items, that these expenses are 42.47 per cent of the profit receipts in the case of national associations, while in the case of the local organizations the operating expenses amount to but 14.09 per cent of the same items. 9491 No. 43-02-8

DIGEST OF RECENT FOREIGN STATISTICAL PUBLICATIONS.

BELGIUM.

Les Moteurs Électriques dans les Industries à Domicile: I. L'Industri Horlogère Suisse; II. Le Tissage de la Soie à Lyon; III. L'Industrie de la Rubanerie à St. Etienne. Rapport présenté à M. le Ministre de l'Industrie et du Travail par MM. E. Dubois et A. Julin, 1902. 292 pp.

This report was made by Prof. Ernest Dubois, of the University of Ghent, and M. Armand Julin, division chief of the Belgian labor bureau, who were appointed by the Belgian minister of industry and labor as a committee to make an investigation into the economic effects of the introduction of the electric motor on domestic or cottage indus tries. In the report an effort has been made, first, to present the economic results of the introduction of the electric motor, and second, to discover whether, in the domestic industries investigated, the introduction of machinery moved by electric power tends to prevent or retard the progress of the concentration of industry in factories.

The industries investigated were watchmaking in Switzerland, silk weaving in Lyon, France, and ribbon weaving in St. Etienne, France.

THE WATCHMAKING INDUSTRY.-The report on the conditions in the Swiss watchmaking industry gives an account of the growth and organization of the industry from its beginning in 1587 to the present time. The making of the watch was at first all done by one person, then the usual course of specialization followed. A series of specialized occupations first sprang up, and was later followed by a gee graphical specialization, in which the workmen engaged in the making of each special part of the watch congregated in certain localities. The products of these domestic workers were purchased by the merchant watchmakers, who finished and adjusted the rough movements. This method of production still employs a large proportion of the persons engaged in the industry.

The first factory for the manufacture of watches was established in 1804; it made use of 19 different machines and produced several grades of movements. In 1834 the first watches with interchangeable parts were manufactured. Since that time the factory, under the stimulus of the competition of the American factory-made watch, has steadily improved its processes, and has each year absorbed a larger

proportion of the field and correspondingly lessened the opportunities of the domestic worker. As a result, the condition of the latter class has become so depressed that measures for its relief have become the subject of general discussion. In the hope of placing the domestic worker on a level with the factory, the plan of providing him with mechanical motive power in the shape of electric motors has been adopted. The problem of securing electric power is fortunately not a difficult one in Switzerland, where there is a large amount of water power available. In many cases the communes have established plants for the production of electric power, and have adopted rates for small motor service which are intended to be well within the means of the domestic workers. The following table shows the tariffs in force in several localities. The plants at Chaux-de-Fonds, Locle, and Fleurier belong to the communes; that at St. Imier belongs to a stock company.

RATES PER ANNUM FOR ELECTRIC-MOTOR SERVICE IN 4 COMMUNES OF SWITZERLAND.

a Renters of power in these classes receive a discount of 25 per cent on agreement to use no power during lighting hours.

b Power not to be used during lighting hours.

e For horsepower.

d For

horsepower.

In the first two localities power in excess of the number of hours contracted for may be used on the payment of a pro rata sum.

In Fleurier contracts for motors of two horsepower or less, to be used only outside of lighting hours, may be made on the basis of 20 centimes ($0.0386) per horsepower per hour, no contract being made for less than 750 hours.

In spite of all efforts, the small motor has not found an extensive use among the domestic workers. The expense of installation and of changing tools is usually too heavy for the limited means of this class of producers. Many of them have but little use for power in the manufacture of their specialties, but the reason assigned as the principal one is the lack of interest on the part of the workmen themselves.

THE SILK INDUSTRY.-The establishment of the silk industry at Lyon by Italian weavers in the sixteenth century was followed in the two succeeding centuries by a specialization in the direction of the weaving of figured silks and rich cloths of gold and silver. The ability to weave such fabrics required a long apprenticeship and special technical knowledge. The demand for them, being subject to changing