special points of view, that would be absolutely unavailable if we had to rely wholly on the volume indexes. Take, for instance, inquiries concerning experiments in price fixing or State control of distribution of necessaries. The exact commodities affected by this type of legislation have been so varied, and the acts have been indexed ordinarily only under the specific heading, that it would have been impossible to collect together instances of legislation of this character if the indexes of the session laws were used exclusively. The effort has been made to keep the index abreast of the material received in the Library of Congress, but that has not been feasible. However, it has been kept fairly up to date and ordinarily any requests on recent legislation, up to within the current session, can be answered from the files with a couple of hours' additional work to cover material not yet indexed. The greatest value of the index has resulted from the point of view from which it has been made. There are many types of inquiries where it is still more practical to go to the indexes of the volumes, but there are more instances where inquiries have been answered from the index files which without them could not have been answered at all. The value of any efforts to extend the work beyond merely keeping up with legislation as enacted, would be to include this type of material not otherwise available, and to work into one uniform scheme, however broad, the inconsistencies now existing in the available indexes to state material. ative foreign legis The Index to Comparative Foreign Legislation, started Index to compar in 1917, was at first limited to the laws of Canada, France, lation. Germany, Great Britain, and Italy. To meet, however, the increasing demand of Members of Congress for data on foreign law, it has been necessary from time to time to extend the scope of the index until it may, as now organized, be said to cover the legislation of the principal countries of the world. Index to comparative foreign legislation. Owing to the small force available for indexing, however, the index is not exhaustive. It can only be representative of the most important legislation. The material is selected with a view to meeting the actual or expected demand for data bearing on legislation pending in Congress. Subjects of recurring interest are covered with particular care, for example: Aliens, corporations, disabled, finance, merchant marine, pensions, railroads, reconstruction, soldier settlement, taxation, wages, etc. The number of entries under certain headings is as follows: Taxation, 1,300; finance, 300; merchant marine, 300; railroads, 500; reconstruction, 250. The bulk of the publications indexed is in English. The most important of these are: The United States Commerce Reports; the "Contributions of the Comparative Law Bureau of the American Bar Association," published by the American Bar Association Journal; the Economic Review, London; the publications of the League of Nations, of the International Labour Office, and of the International Institute of Agriculture; the Board of Trade Journal, London; the Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law, London; the Journal of Conational Law, New York; the Journal of the Parliaments of the Empire, London; the South American Review, London; the Parliamentary debates of the House of Commons. The publications in the French language come next in importance. They include, in addition to the purely French publications, those printed and issued outside of France. To this class belong many international publications and the Government publications of certain countries, such as Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Roumania, etc. The following international and foreign publications printed in French are indexed: Annuaire international de législation agricole, published yearly by the International Institute of Agriculture; Annuaire de législation étrangère, published yearly by the Société de législation comparée, parative foreign Paris (other publications of that Society indexed are its Index to comBulletin mensuel and its Annuaire de législation française); legislation. Bulletin de l'Institut Intermédiaire International, The Hague; Correspondance économique; Bulletin officiel du Ministère de l'industrie et du commerce, Roumania; Exposé sommaire des travaux législatifs de l'Assemblée Nationale Tchécoslovaque, published at the end of each session of the legislature; Pasinomie (Belgian laws); Bulletin de documentation économique, published by the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The following are French publications indexed: Bulletin du Ministère du travail et de la prévoyance sociale; Bulletin de presse étrangère and Recueil de documents étrangers, published by the Ministère des affaires étrangères; Bulletin analytique des principaux documents parlementaires étrangers; transmis à la présidence de la Chambre des députés (publication temporarily suspended); Bulletin de statistique et de législation comparée, published by the Ministère des finances; Documents parlementaires of the Senate and of the Chamber of Deputies; Journal officiel de la République Française; Revue de science et de législation financières; Bulletin de la Société d'études législatives; L'économiste français; Journal des économistes; Revue politique et parlementaire; Journal du droit international (Clunet). Italian publications indexed: Collezione celerifera (session laws); Bollettino della emigrazione; Bollettino di legisla-. zione e statistica doganale e commerciale; Bollettino di legislazione fiscale; Bollettino di statistica e di legislazione comparata; Gazzetta ufficiale del Regno d'Italia; parliamentary documents of the Senate and of the Chamber of Deputies. Spanish publications indexed: Boletín mensual de la Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional, Argentine Republic; Revista parlamentaria de Cuba; Boletín analítico de los principales documentos extranjeros, published by the Secre Newspaper in dex. taría del Congreso de los Diputados, Spain; Gaceta de Madrid; Boletín oficial de la Cámara de comercio de la provincia de Madrid. German publications indexed: The German Official Gazette (Reichs-Gesetzblatt) and the Soziale Praxis und Archiv für Volkswohlfahrt are regularly indexed. The latter contains references, outlines, and commentaries on the most important and recent laws passed in the principal countries of Europe. We have also in the course of preparation an international law index showing the most recent developments, interpretations, and decisions in the field of international law, diplomacy and arbitration. During the past year we have been carrying on an index to the speeches, addresses and other public utterances of prominent men on the questions of the day. This is necessarily extremely limited in its scope but it has proved of the greatest value in enabling the service to locate such material for which there is a great demand. A classified list of the more important questions is, as usual, appended to the report, but is omitted from publication as the scope and character of them has been sufficiently illustrated by the lists given in the reports for several years past. Respectfully submitted. HERBERT PUTNAM, The honorable the PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE. The honorable the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRE SENTATIVES. REPORT OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT AND DISBURSING OFFICER. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Washington, D. C., September 17, 1923. SIR: As administrative assistant and disbursing officer I beg to submit the following report as to the Library Building for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1923, being the first fiscal year under the new organization prescribed by the act of June 29, 1922. Under the Librarian, the duties of this office included the custody, care, and maintenance of the Library Building; the accounting and disbursement of the appropriations for the Library of Congress, and the disbursement of the appropriations for the Botanic Garden. HOUSEKEEPING DEPARTMENT. As the building becomes older more care is required each year to keep it in good condition with our limited funds. In addition to the regular cleaning force, one decorator and one painter were constantly employed, but a great deal more of such work is urgently needed. Some of the work accomplished during the year was the cleaning and, where necessary, the repairing of all the decorative marble and mural painting in the west main hall, second story; redecorating the walls and laying new floor runners in the visitors' gallery, and cleaning the colossal white figures around this gallery; repainting the main room of the copyright office (south curtain basement); repairing the inlaid hardwood floors of the Senate and House reading rooms, and equipping all the furniture with slides instead of rolling casters so that these floors can not be defaced in future; replacing glass in 42 windows; supply |