Finances.

The reports of the R. W. Grand Treasurer and G. Secretary will present to you in detail the fullest information upon the subject of your financial affairs, to which I take the liberty of inviting your special attention. It will be observed that with the close of this session the balance in the treasury, which has been gradually diminishing for several years, will almost if not entirely disappear, the expenses exceeding the revenue this year several thousand dollars, and whilst it may not be of much avail to advert to the former policy of the Grand Lodge, it will be wise to profit by the experience of the past, and to settle down upon some reliable financial basis that will bring the expenditures within the revenue. A fruitful source of this depletion has resulted, I fear, from a propensity to hold the annual sessions of the body at places remote from the seat of government. I know that it has generally been a concession to pressing invitations from the jurisdictions visited, and now that the constituency in page 5 many different localities of the country have been gratified with the presence in their midst of its assembled Representatives, I would suggest that some constitutional restraint be imposed, fixing permanently the place for holding the annual, and other sessions, or certainty to limit the meeting in other localities oftener than once in five or ten years, unless by unanimous consent of the Representatives, or from circumstances which might render it impossible, of which the officers of the G. L. of U. S. might be left to judge.

The practice that has heretofore obtained of placing Subordinate Lodges and Encampments, located in districts where no Grand Bodies have been instituted, under the jurisdiction of adjoining Grand Lodges and Encampments, I submit has resulted in a loss of revenue without any corresponding benefit, as the most of them rarely see a Grand Lodge officer, and the information, which is generally if not entirely communicated through the mails, could be as well if not more conveniently done through the office of the Grand C. and R. Secretary and D. D. Grand Sire.