When we come to the exact form of the economic questions, differences, of course, begin to appear. Tariffs, trusts, regulation of commerce, were never great political questions in the days of the Roman republic. The greatest source of scandal and class favoritism at Rome was to be found in the management and distribution of the public lands. This particular problem was one which our country, for nearly a century of national existence, was able to handle, in the main, wisely and honestly. The great body of that vast expanse of rich farming land, which was once the greatest asset of the United States, was disposed of to actual settlers, who have played an important part in the development of our wonderful West. Recently, however, corruption even along this line has begun to manifest itself in America. Passing over the numerous charges of actual corruption which have been made, it is to be regretted that the United States government has of late shown a decided disposition to favor great interests rather than ordinary individuals in the management of the public resources. An extremely indefensible discrimination is to be found in the act of July 1, 1902, which established the form of civil government for the Philippine Islands. Section 15 of this act, in providing for the management of the public lands, provided that no more than sixteen hectares of such land can be disposed of to any one individual, while a corporation may acquire as much as 1,024 hectares. From the standpoint of pure governmental science the most interesting comparison between Rome and the United States lies in the elaborate and complicated system of checks and balances to be found in each government. The framers of each system seem generally to have been thinking more of securing perfect brakes than of installing sufficient operating power. It is a mere hackneyed remark to say that the most prominent characteristic of the work of the Federal Constitutional Convention was the system of checks and balances it developed, while this same principle was carried to such an extreme in the organization of the Roman government that it almost seems strange to an outside observer that at times the resisting power of the "brakes" did not prove more powerful than the operating power of the government, with the result of a total failure of all government, and chaos, or anarchy. The most interesting of the "checks" in the Roman government was the veto power of the tribunes--interesting alike for its contemporary importance at Rome, and perhaps even more so for the great and strangely directed influence which it has had upon the later development of governmental institutions throughout the world.