of the public lands immediately begun.  Coal-land laws should be provided whereby the coal-land entryman may make his location and secure patent under methods kindred to those now prescribed for homestead and mineral entrymen.  Salmon hatcheries, exclusively under Government control, should be established.  The cable should be extended from Sitka westward.  Wagon roads and trails should be built, and the building of railroads promoted in all legitimate ways.  Light-houses should be built along the coast.  Attention should be paid to the needs of the Alaska Indians; provision should be made for an officer, with deputies, to study their needs, relieve their immediate wants, and help them adapt themselves to the new conditions.

The commission appointed to investigate, during the season of 1903, the condition and needs of the Alaskan salmon fisheries, has finished its work in the field, and is preparing a detailed report thereon.  A preliminary report reciting the measures immediately required for the protection and preservation of the salmon industry has already been submitted to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor for his attention and for the needed action.

I recommend that an appropriation be made for building light-houses in Hawaii, and taking possession of those already built.  The Territory should be reimbursed for whatever amounts it has already expended for light-houses.  The governor should be empowered to suspend or remove any official appointed by him, without submitting the matter to the legislature.

Of our insular possessions the Philippines and Porto Rico it is gratifying to say that their steady progress has been such as to make it unnecessary to spend much time in discussing them.  Yet the Congress should ever keep in mind that a peculiar obligation rests upon us to further in every way the welfare of these communities.  The Philippines should be knit closer to us by tariff arrangements.  It would, of course, be impossible suddenly to raise the people of the islands to the high pitch of industrial prosperity and of governmental efficiency to which they will in the end by degrees attain; and the caution and moderation shown in developing them have been among the main reasons why this development has hitherto gone on so smoothly.  Scrupulous care has been taken in the choice of governmental agents, and the entire elimination of partisan politics from the public service.  The condition of the islanders is in material things far better than ever before, while their governmental, intellectual, and moral advance has kept pace with their material advance.  No one people ever benefited another people more than we have benefited the Filipinos by taking possession of the islands.

The cash receipts of the General Land Office for the last fiscal year were $11,024,743.65, an increase of $4,762,816.47 over the preceding year.  Of this sum, approximately, $8,461,493 will go to the credit of the fund for the reclamation of arid land, making the total of this fund, up to the 30th of June, 1903, approximately, $16,191,836.