Last winter bids were requested and received for doing the work of canal construction by contract.  None of them was found to be satisfactory and all were rejected.  It is the unanimous opinion of the present Commission that the work can be done better, more cheaply, and more quickly by the Government than by private contractors.  Fully 80 per cent of the entire plant needed for construction has been purchased or contracted for; machine shops have been erected and equipped for making all needed repairs to the plant; many thousands of employees have been secured; an effective organization has been perfected; a recruiting system is in operation which is capable of furnishing more labor than can be used advantageously; employees are well sheltered and well fed; salaries paid are satisfactory, and the work is not only going forward smoothly, but it is producing results far in advance of the most sanguine anticipations.  Under these favorable conditions, a change in the method of prosecuting the work would be unwise and unjustifiable, for it would inevitably disorganize existing conditions, check progress, and increase the cost and lengthen the time of completing the Canal.

The chief engineer and all his professional associates are firmly convinced that the 85 feet level lock canal which they are constructing is the best that could be desired.  Some of them had doubts on this point when they went to the Isthmus.  As the plans have developed under their direction their doubts have been dispelled.  While they may decide upon changes in detail as construction advances they are in hearty accord in approving the general plan.  They believe that it provides a canal not only adequate to all demands that will be made upon it but superior in every way to a sea level canal.  I concur in this belief.

I commend to the favorable consideration of the Congress a postal savings bank system, as recommended by the Postmaster-General.  The primary object is to encourage among our people economy and thrift and by the use of postal savings banks to give them an opportunity to husband their resources, particularly those who have not the facilities at hand for depositing their money in savings banks.  Viewed, however, from the experience of the past few weeks, it is evident that the advantages of such an institution are till more far-reaching.  Timid depositors have withdrawn their savings for the time being from national banks, trust companies, and savings banks; individuals have hoarded their cash and the workingmen their earnings; all of which money has been withheld and kept in hiding or in safe deposit box to the detriment of prosperity.  Through the agency of the postal savings banks such money would be restored to the channels of trade, to the mutual benefit of capital and labor.