=Addendum.=--Since the above was written President Harding has issued the annual legislative message to Congress (December 8, 1922), in which he discusses at some length the transportation problem in the United States. Among other things he says: Manifestly, we have need to begin on plans to coördinate all transportation facilities. We should more effectively connect up our rail lines with our carriers by sea. We ought to reap some benefit from the hundreds of millions expended on inland waterways, proving our capacity to utilize as well as to expend. We ought to turn the motor truck into a rail feeder and distributor instead of a destroying competitor. It would be folly to ignore that we live in a motor age. The motor car reflects our standard of living and gauges the speed of our present-day life. This transportation problem cannot be waived aside. The demand for lowered costs on farm products and basic materials cannot be ignored.... Government operation does not afford the cure. It was government operation which brought to us the very order of things against which we now rebel, and we are still liquidating the costs of that supreme folly. Surely the genius of the railway builders has not become extinct among the railway managers. New economies, new efficiencies in coöperation must be found. The fact that labor takes 50 to 60 per cent of total railway earnings makes limitations within which to effect economies very difficult but the demand is no less insistent on that account. The President then urged merger of railroads, pooling of equipment and a central agency to aid in their financing and to suggest economies. This portion of his message was evidently inspired by the great labor strike during the summer of 1922, and the subsequent shortage of cars and inadequacy of transportation facilities. He argued that there “should be a guaranty against suspended operation. The public must be spared even the threat of discontinued service.” He then recommended an abolition of the Labor Board as not being “so constituted as best to serve the public interest.” This board is composed of three members selected by the railways and three by railway employees, and three by the Government. According to President Harding “it is inevitable that the partisan viewpoint is maintained throughout hearings and in decisions handed down. Only the public group of three is free to function in unbiased decisions.” He, therefore, suggested the abolishment of the partisan membership and that the work of the board be performed by or in very close contact with the Inter-State Commerce Commission which already has supreme authority in rate making to which “wage cost bears an indissoluble relationship.”