action for this purpose as you may deem necessary should be taken as soon as practicable.

CLAIMS AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT.

The attention of Congress is called to the laws imposing upon this Department the adjudication of a multitude of claims. Its organization is admirably adapted for the investigation and statement of accounts accruing in the ordinary course of current business, but it is not adapted to the investigation of claims long since accrued, and supported in most cases by ex-parte affidavits. The Department has no authority to cross-examine witnesses, no agents to send to examine into alleged facts, and no facilities, such as are in common use by courts, to ascertain truth and expose falsehood. It is respectfully suggested that this class of claims, not already acted upon, be transferred from the Treasury Department, and its business of accounting be confined to current accounts, payable from appropriations made within a short period of time.

Most of these claims are paid out of what are classed as "permanent annual appropriations," contained in section 3689, Revised Statutes, which do not come under the annual supervision of Congress. These appropriations, though declared to be annual, have been used for the payment of claims, however old, including nearly every case of fraudulent or exaggerated claims paid by this Department. It is respectfully urged that this important section be carefully revised; that the appropriations contained therein be made annually; and that only such claims as accrue within a brief period be paid by the Department, unless proper evidence in their favor appears upon the public records, as in the case of the principal or interest of the funded debt.

By the act approved June 20, 1874, (18 Stats., 110, sec. 5,) it was provided: "That from and after the first day of July, eighteen hundred and seventy-four, and of each year thereafter, the Secretary of the Treasury shall cause all unexpended balances of appropriations which shall have remained upon the books of the Treasury for two fiscal years to be carried to the surplus fund and covered into the Treasury," &c.

Under a construction of this act, placed upon it after a full examination by the Department, it was held that most of the appropriations made by this section, and which accrued prior to July 1, 1874, are not within the exceptions stated in the act, and they were accordingly covered into the Treasury, and are not available except for current purposes and for claims accruing within the time fixed by that act. It

seems to be the clear purpose of this act to include permanent annual appropriations within its operation, and to thus include them is a wise public policy.

Among the permanent annual appropriations made in the section referred to, is that to repay to importers the excess of deposits for unascertained duties, or duties or other moneys paid under protest, from which the greater part of the refunds of customs duties are made. These include a class of claims commonly known as the "charges and commissions cases," which arose under the act of March 3, 1851. About fourteen hundred suits were brought by importers against the collector of customs at the port of New York, to recover alleged excessive duties collected by him in obedience to the decision of the Secretary of the Treasury that, to ascertain the dutiable value of imported goods at the port of entry, there should be added to the actual market value of the goods at the port of exportation, a commission of two and one-half per cent., and certain costs and charges. This act was repealed June 30, 1864, so that all these claims accrued prior to that date.

Over two million dollars have been paid on these claims, the items of interest and costs forming a very large proportion of that amount. The remaining cases are still pending in various stages of progress, and, to satisfy these, two million dollars more will probably be required. Upon full consideration, the Secretary is of the opinion that no money should be appropriated for the payment of these claims until after a thorough investigation has been made into the nature, character, and justice, not only of those still pending, but also of 'those paid. Full details of these claims, as far as it is possible for the Department to ascertain them, will be submitted to Congress.

Under the same section claims for refund of taxes, illegally imposed under internal-revenue-tax laws, are paid. Claims under these laws are very numerous and varied in character, and some are still pending for refund of taxes wrongfully imposed under statutes which have been repealed and are no longer in force.

In internal-revenue cases, the law now in force in regard to informers' rewards (Section 3463, Revised Statutes) authorizes the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary, to pay such sums as he may deem necessary for detecting and bringing to trial persons guilty of violating the laws. It is respectfully submitted that all such discretionary powers be more carefully limited by law.

Questions are constantly arising as to the allowance to be made to district attorneys for their compensation. The statutes have been so

often amended and so variously construed that it is almost impossible to determine what allowances should be made.

In the southern district of New York the allowances have been such that in some years the compensation of the district attorney has exceeded $30,000, while in some meritorious cases there has hardly been sufficient authority for making a fair allowance.

To avoid excessive compensation, the Secretary has limited the ag gregate amount of allowances to any district attorney within one year, including salary, to ten thousand dollars; but the better way is to establish by law the salary of each district attorney, and to forbid all allowances.

Under the act of July 4, 1864, and acts amendatory thereof, and Section 300, Appendix to Revised Statutes, claims of loyal citizens, in States not in rebellion, for quartermaster's stores and subsistence supplies received or taken for the use of the Army, are to be reported by the quartermaster general or commissary general, if satisfied that they are just, to the Third Auditor for settlement. The action of the accounting officers of the Treasury Department upon this class of claims is required, by the act of June 16, 1874, to be reported by the Secretary to Congress, at the commencement of each session, for consideration, before payment by appropriation. The number of claims of this character is very large, and the amount allowed thereon and reported in the Digest of Appropriations for 1877 is $270,357 22.

Other classes of claims under the jurisdiction of the same accounting officers, but not required by statute to be reported for specific appropriation, include those for compensation for horses and equipments lost in the military service, and for use and loss of steamboats and other vessels, railroad engines, &c., under the act of March 3, 1849, amended and construed by the acts of March 3, 1863, and June 22, 1874, and sections 3482 to 3489, Revised Statutes. These claims are numerous and involve a large amount in the aggregate.

By the act of May 18, 1872, section 5, the Secretary of the Treasury was authorized and directed to pay to the lawful owners, or their legal representatives, the net proceeds actually paid into the Treasury of all cotton seized after the 30th day of June, 1865, by agents of the Government unlawfully and in violation of their instructions. The Secretary was invested with sole jurisdiction as to the construction of the act, and the methods by which the facts should be ascertained.

Under certain regulations of the Department, thirteen hundred and thirty-six claims were filed, claiming the proceeds of one hundred and thirty-six thousand bales of cotton, the estimated value of which is $13,600,000.

The act is strictly limited in its scope, and was apparently intended to afford relief in a comparatively small number of cases, not disposed of by the Secretary before the proceeds of captured property were cov ered into the Treasury under the joint resolution of March 30, 1868, and in which wrongful or erroneous seizures were made by the agents of the Government engaged, after the close of active hostilities, in collecting and securing the many thousand bales of cotton scattered through the Southern States, which had been sold by its former owners to the Confederate States.

The amount of cotton taken was known to be greatly in excess of that which came into the hands of authorized agents of the Govern ment subsequent to June 30, 1865; and, in view of the facts, that almost all of the fifty thousand bales of cotton collected after that date, the proceeds of which reached the Treasury, had been sold to the · Confederate States during the war, or was unlawfully acquired by companies formed for the purpose of running the blockade, and that the restrictions of the act whereby the power of the Secretary to grant relief was confined within very narrow limits, the reason for the payment of so small an amount, as contrasted with the vast sum demanded, is apparent.

Upon the summary statement thus made, the Secretary respectfully recommends that all authority or power in this Department to pass upon claims that do not accrue within a brief period before they are presented, and which are not steadily prosecuted by the claimants, be taken away; that no claim once passed upon by the Department shall be reopened, and that the decisions heretofore rendered shall be final.

It is possible that, in acting upon the multitude of claims growing out of a great war, injustice has in some cases been done, and that honest claims have not been paid, while some fraudulent claims have been paid. But greater injustice would be done by reopening claims growing out of the war. It is the best policy to consider all such claims not heretofore paid as closed, unless Congress, by special acts in particular cases, shall extend appropriate relief.

There should be a limitation of time within which a claim should be presented, and a like limitation within which a suit in behalf of the United States should be commenced. Such a limitation is especially

needed as to suits brought by the United States against sureties on official bonds. In some cases, claims against the principal debtor, long delayed by the neglect of the Government, are unjustly pressed against the surety. Nearly all the fraudulent and exaggerated claims that have been presented to this Department are alleged to have accrued long since, and the evidence of the facts that would be a complete defence is lost by time. Such claims are supported by plausible affidavits, and, in some cases, by forgery and perjury. A statute of limitations in all cases would be a proper measure, not only as to claims between citi. zens, but as to claims for or against the Government.

The Secretary recommends this subject to the attention of Congress.

BUREAU OF ENGRAVING AND PRINTING.

Of the appropriation of $800,000 for the payment of labor and ex penses in this bureau for the present fiscal year, $600,000 will remain unexpended at the close of the year. The internal-revenue stamps for cigars, liquors, snuff, and tobacco, printed under contract by the New York bank-note companies last year, will be printed in the bureau the current year, at a reduction in cost to the Government of $68,841 89. The printing of the backs of legal-tender notes and of the five-dollar national-currency notes, last year done by the Columbian Bank-Note Company, of this city, will also be executed in the bureau, and at a reduction in cost, as compared with the rates paid last year, of $40,254 30. The act making appropriations for the legislative, executive, and judicial expenses of the Government for the present fiscal year, (19 Statutes at Large, p. 152,) appropriates for dies, paper, and stamps for the internal revenue, $466,000, the engraving and printing to be done in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing of the Treasury Department, provided the cost does not exceed the prices paid under existing contracts. The contracts referred to were made in 1874 with the American, National, and Continental Bank-Note Companies, and were terminable on ninety days' notice. On the 20th day of June last, the Secretary requested the Chief of the Bureau to make such observations as he desired upon the comparative cost of printing internal-revenue stamps by private companies and by the bureau, and in reply received, on the 23d of June, a statement that the stamps referred to could be done by the bureau for $227,590, as against $296,431 89 paid to the bank-note companies last year, all of the printing to be done by plate and surface-printing from steel-plates. Being satisfied that this saving could be effected, and the law preferring that the work be done in the Treasury Department, the Secretary, on the 25th of June, gave the required ninety days' notice, and on the 1st of October