SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY _Funding_ The material comfort of every people depends more immediately upon the correct management of its finances than upon any other branch of government.

_Haute finance_, to use a French expression for which there is no English equivalent, demands in its application the faculties of organization and administration in their highest degree.

The relations of money to currency and credit, and their relations to industry and agriculture, or in modern phrase of capital to labor, fall within its scope.

The history of France, the nation which has best understood and applied true principles of finance, supplies striking examples of the benefits a finance minister of the first order renders to his country, and the dangers of false theories.

The marvelous restoration of its prosperity by the genius of Colbert, the ruin caused by the malign sciolism of Law, are familiar to all students of political economy.