tined through the efforts of an earnest and patriotic citizenship to become a still better government.

EXISTING AGENCIES OF COLORADO GOVERNMENT.

Returning to the subject of discussion, you are asked to consider, in a general way, the extent to which Colorado has entered into matters pertaining to business and industry, and the existing devices by which the State's part of business administration is conducted.

Our state government now maintains over forty boards, commissions, bureaus or special offices in the nature of bureaus. At least thirty of these official agencies of administration are created for and engaged in the inspection and regulation of industry, or in the transaction of state business pertaining to the property of the state. There are boards for regulation and licensing of architects, barbers, horseshoers, pharmacists, physicians, nurses, veterinary surgeons and other trades or professions; we have a Bureau of Labor Statistics, a free employment agency department, a labor commission office, and a state wage board; besides the State Agricultural Board, we have separate boards, bureaus or offices dealing with dairies, the bee industry, forestry, horticulture, entomology and livestock; there exists a department or office for the inspection of factories, another for the inspection of oils, another for the inspection of steam boilers, another for the inspection and regulation of slaughter houses, another for the inspection and regulation of food and drugs; we have an extensive bureau for the engineering work and supervision of the irrigation system, a board for the state lands, and another for the State Capitol grounds and building; a commission for game and fish, and a commission for the state highways; separate commissions for the regulation of banks, insurance companies, building and loan associations, and railways; a department of mines, a board for inspection and regulation of coal mines, a superintendent of state mineral lands, and a geological board and office.

These, and a number of other bureaus or offices, deal with business and industry. They are in addition to the several separate boards having charge of the penal, protective and educational instituations of the state.

A number of these boards or bureaus are maintained at the direct expense of the particular industry, and in several instances the board members themselves serve without compensation; but, taken as a whole, this business of the industrial branch of the state government, requires for its administration a substantial part of the state funds. In considering this subject I have included, along with the commissions for the regulation of industry, those boards or commissions of the state which control and deal with the property of the state; not because they exist for the same purpose but, rather, because they might properly come under the same general division of state activity and, naturally, require the same general qualifications of the office-holders and the same general system of doing business; but I have not included the boards in charge of the educational, penal and protec tive institutions of the state, because of the broad difference as to the duties to be performed.

Taking the state auditor's advance estimate of the appropriations necessary to maintain the state government for 1913 and 1914 (Biennial Report of Auditor of State, 1911-1912, at page 22), and including only those items of estimate which reasonably pertain to the regulation of industry or the transaction of business concerning state property; and taking again the same report as to the actual expenditures for the years 1911 and 1912 for the same purposes-it appears that this business phase of state administration calls for a regular expenditure of at least $250,000.00 per year, in addition to the considerable amounts. raised and expended by the Livestock Inspection Board, and some other boards existing for the licensing and simple regulation of trades or professions. The estimate does not include the expenditures made in aid of the farming industry through the Agricul

tural School, nor that made in aid of the mining industry through the State School of Mines; and it does not cover all of the occasional appropriations of money for special aid or regulation. Making a general estimate, it is safe to say that the state expends from $250,000,00 to $300,000.00 per year in the supervision and regulation of industry, including the administration of the state's own property. In other words, the amount of money so expended by the state government equals the combined total of disbursements for the purpose of maintaining the judicial department and for the ordinary expenses of maintaining the legislative department of the state.

These matters of the great number of boards, bureaus and offices maintained and the substantial annual expenditures to accomplish the work-are not brought forward in any spirit of criticism. These conditions are the natural outgrowth of state progress. They represent the advance, step by step, of better understanding of the affairs of industry and of the state's ability to serve the public welfare. From the very manner of our progress this business branch of the state had to be added, piece by piece, extension after extension. Only lately have we arrived at the place of survey, where we begin to wonder if some general system can not be devised and used instead of maintaining a separate institution for each separate enterprise. And this condition of state government is not attributable to the policy of any one political party or the tendency of any one administration. The people have from time to time demanded addition to the work of the state, and the sum total of all the additions has brought about a condition where, for the first time, review and generalization appear to be possible.

Our last legislature found it necessary to authorize the governor, whenever he found the state funds inadequate, to suspend from operation any of these boards, commissions or bureaus. In Colorado, as in the other states, the field of government seems to be widening and the expense of administration increasing. This

does not necessarily mean that any of the activities of government are either unnecessary or undesirable, but the burden of cost naturally impels our citizens to inquire whether it may not be possible to bring about the same efficiency of administration with less of cost.

Some have taken the view, basing their premises in the simple form of government heretofore found sufficient for the then simple form of industry, that there is too much of legislation, and that the state should refrain from so much activity in regard to industry and should retreat from the field of business regulation. Some have advocated that all the boards and commissions and bureaus should be reduced to system. This last suggestion would seem to be sound. It appears only reasonable that, if the state is to continue with the same scope of activity, or more especially if it is to extend its activity, then, by organizing and reducing to system its many agencies of effort, the result ought to be more efficiency and a reduction of the aggregate expense. But to give sound consideration to the question of reorganizing and systematizing this business division of government, it is necessary to include in the view some other and further matters bearing upon the subject. The foundation can not be properly established unless we first learn the dimensions of the needed structure. We can not well anticipate how this branch of government will need to be outlined unless we first make some survey of what it is likely to include whether the state will limit its activities or will extend them, whether the bounds of business regulation and business transaction by the state have been reached or whether further domain must be included.

THE FUTURE OF STATE AID AND REGULATION.

Since the days of individual production and individual competition, industry has taken long strides. We realize in a general way the effects of rapid transportation and immediate communication; we notice some of the changes wrought by wholesale

machine production; we wonder at the rapidity of change brought about by each succeeding important invention; we realize in a general way, the dependence of industry upon industry; we hear with increasing frequency the appeal that the commonwealth shall aid industry here or restrain industry there; but, on the whole, it is still difficult for us to fully appreciate the extent to which industries themselves have become individualized, and the extent to which each has become consciously dependent upon the other, and the still greater extent to which the welfare of the whole people now rests upon the right relation between the many industries forming the structure of industrial government. A strong contributor to the change of conditions has been the generally diffused knowledge, the understanding view, the general sizingup of the actual condition and relation of the several industries. From the days when each man worked for himself, knowing nothing of the contributors to his same market, among the thousands of individuals working in other communities and in other states, to this day, when the cotton crop is measured before it is shipped, when wheat and corn are discounted before they are harvested. when the stores of the world's copper are measured and the demand anticipated for months in advance, is a long, long step, and has wrought remarkable changes in the relation of industry to government.

For instance, when agriculture advanced to the stage of introspection, where it began to view itself and understand its own strength and its own needs, it found difficulties beyond the power of the individual farmer to overcome; problems which affected the prosperity of the industry and which, the people of the nation were made to see, affected the welfare of the whole nation. The government was appealed to and convinced. It gave its aid, and not only the industry but the republic benefited.

In early days it made little difference to the whole people whether over the mountains, in a remote county, the sheep or cattle of Mr. Jones were afflicted with disease. The people knew