Mr. Wanamaker's alternative proposition, to utilize the funds in the direction of greater and much needed expenditures for public buildings, particularly post-office structures, is, on the other hand, a sound one. They might also be employed to advantage in providing the means for the much needed extension of the postal service now so widely demanded, as in the adoption of a parcels post equal to that of Germany, England, and other countries, and in nationalizing the telegraph and telephone and incorporating them into the postal department. The deposits in the proposed check and clearing department would place an enormous amount at the disposal of the government, in addition to the postal savings-bank funds. Paying no interest on these deposits, the government might utilize the money in its own expenditures, and thus to a considerable extent reduce taxation. Or, just as the ordinary banks loan their deposits, the government might loan this money for mortgages on land and on staple products, somewhat as demanded in recent agitations. A person so eminent in the discussion of these questions as Mr. Edward Atkinson has recently stated, in substance, that, increase the volume of the currency as we may, still it would not be adequate to certain exigencies of regular recurrence, like the annual moving of the crops. He thus practically concedes the justice of the farmers' demand, as formulated in their "sub-treasury project," but he would supply this want through private banking institutions organized expressly to loan money for this purpose. Such institutions would, however, naturally take advantage of the necessities of the farmers by obtaining the highest rates of interest possible, while the underlying purpose of the other plan would be that of making the loans at the lowest rates consistent with the expense of the transactions. Is it not better, it may be asked, and more in accordance with the principles of true self-help, for the people thus to supply their own financial needs in the cheapest way possible through the instrumentality of their governmental organization, rather than depend upon "private enterprise" organized to take advantage of their necessities for its own profit? At first glance there might seem to be an objection in the fact that, while the government was lending money at two per cent. it was paying on savings deposits interest possibly as high as 2.4 per cent., which would appear to be an unbusiness-like and unprofitable proceeding. But on striking an average between the sums on which it was paying that rate and the large amounts on which it was paying no interest, but receiving two per cent., it would probably be found that it was getting the whole at a rate considerable less than two per cent.