All combatant corps should obviously be of the line. This necessitates amalgamating the pay officers and also those engaged in the technical work of producing the finished ship. This is at present the case with the single exception of the naval constructors, whom it is now proposed to amalgamate with the line. COUNCIL OF NATIONAL DEFENSE. I urge again upon Congress the desirability of establishing the council of national defense. The bill to establish this council was before Congress last winter, and it is hoped that this legislation will pass during the present session. The purpose of the council is to determine the general policy of national defense and to recommend to Congress and to the President such measures relating to it as it shall deem necessary and expedient. No such machinery is now provided by which the readiness of the Army and Navy may be improved and the programs of military and naval requirements shall be coordinated and properly scrutinized with a view of the necessities of the whole Nation rather than of separate departments. DEPARTMENTS OF AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE AND LABOR. For the consideration of matters which are pending or have been disposed of in the Agricultural Department and in the Department of Commerce and Labor, I refer to the very excellent reports of the Secretaries of those departments. I shall not be able to submit to Congress until after the Christmas holidays the question of conservation of our resources arising in Alaska and the West and the question of the rate for second-class mail matter in the Post Office Department. COMMISSION ON EFFICIENCY AND ECONOMY. The law does not require the submission of the reports of the Commission on Economy and Efficiency until the 31st of December. I shall therefore not be able to submit a report of the work of that commission until the assembling of Congress after the holidays. CIVIL RETIREMENT AND CONTRIBUTORY PENSION SYSTEM. I have already advocated, in my last annual message, the adoption of a civil-service retirement system, with a contributory feature to it so as to reduce to a minimum the cost to the Government of the pensions to be paid. After considerable reflection, I am very much opposed to a pension system that involves no contribution from the employees. I think the experience of other governments justifies this view; but the crying necessity for some such contributory system, with possibly a preliminary governmental outlay, in order to cover the initial cost and to set the system going at once while the contributions are accumulating, is manifest on every side. Nothing will so much promote the economy and efficiency of the Government as such a system. ELIMINATION OF ALL LOCAL OFFICES FROM POLITICS.