44 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Jan. 6

you the exercise of great care to the end that the mobility of
government be not destroyed; as hard and fast rales frequently
lead to greater hardships than existed before these apparent
remedial and beneficial steps were taken.

It would seem to harmonize better with our system of gov-
ernment to vest this power of fixing a maximum amount of
appropriations for various government purposes-that is an
amount which the Legislature can appropriate according to its
own discretion—in the hands of the Treasury officials, the
Comptroller and the State Treasurer, who are supposed to pos-
sess that intimate and accurate knowledge of the State Treas-
ury's possibilities and limitations necessary to best accomplish
the desired result. The reason for not including the Governor
as one of the Budget Commissioners is that by the exercise of
his Constitutional right of veto he could exert an afterthought
with more freedom and effectiveness than were he bound by
the recommendations or suggestions of a body of which he was
a member, namely, the Board of Public Works. Thus we would
have two independent restraints upon the recommendations of
the Budget Commissioners, —the Governor and the Legislature.

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.

Many subjects upon which you will be required to act can
probably be best accomplished through changes in the Constitu-
tion of our State. Nearly every Legislature for the past eight
or ten Sessional has found that the progressive legislation de-
sired was restrained by some Constitutional limitation. This
has resulted in submitting to the people of the State for ap-
proval, at almost every general election, one or more amend-
ments to the Constitution. This has brought about a condi-
tion where we now have much confusion and a lack of co-ordi-
nation in the organic law of our State.

In order to avoid the many recurring amendments and to
bring our Constitution up to the requirements of the day, and
immediately meet the present ideas of government, it seems that
it would be wise and economical to provide for a Constitutional
Convention to redraft the whole scheme and to form it into