The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Maryland [Mr. McCOMAS] is recognized for five minutes.

Mr. McCOMAS, of Maryland, and Mr. O'NEILL, of Missouri, having concluded their arguments, the question was taken and the amendment was non-concurred in. The remaining amendments down to the sixty-second were passed upon; when, on motion of Mr. BURNES, the committee rose.

DEBATE CONTINUED, MARCH 16, 1888.

On motion of Mr. BURNES the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole to consider the urgent deficiency bill.

Mr. BRECKINRIDGE, of Kentucky. I ask the Clerk to read the amendment which I have sent up.

The Clerk read the amendment, the same being for balance of salary due the United States minister to Peru.

Mr. CANNON addressed the Committee.

Mr. BURNES. Mr. Chairman, this is a very plain and simple proposition. The case is not exactly the kind of claim to which my colleague on the committee [Mr. CANNON] alludes. Ordinarily the salary for a minister is appropriated expressly and there is no deficiency; but my friend knows that it frequently happens in the change of ministers, one retiring and another coming in, as was the fact in this case, that there is an interregnum during which a month or two's salary is lost, and these deficiencies are created in that way.

As I understand, this deficiency was created because of a change which was made by the appointment of a new minister.

Mr. CANNON. Does the gentleman understand that two men drew salary at the same time?

Mr. BURNES. I think that in these cases, under the regulations, and probably under the law, one officer holds until the other arrives; and it often happens that a newly appointed minister is upon salary before he starts for his post of duty, and the retiring minister is paid up to the time of the arrival of the new appointee. In this way a deficiency for a few hundred dollars is of frequent occurrence. I think my friend from Illinois is wrong in this matter.

Mr. CANNON. I do not know whether I am or not; but why should this one case be picked out from a dozen just like it, which have to bide their time?

Mr. BURNES. For the simple reason that the Representative from KentuckyMr. RANDALL. I would like to ask the gentleman from Missouri whether in the act making appropriations for the diplomatic service for the fiscal year 1886 the full amount of salary was provided for the minister to Peru?

Mr. BURNES. I have no doubt the full salary was provided, but in this case there was one man in Peru drawing a salary, and another man who drew the salary from about the time of his appointment until he arrived in Peru to take the place of the retiring minister. This necessarily created a deficiency. There is a certain period allowed—I think forty days—for a minister to go from this country to his

post of duty, during which time he is entitled to pay, and of course the officer whose place he is to take is paid until the arrival of the new appointee.

Mr. RANDALL. But if this were a case of that kind the deficiency would not aggregate $1,200.

Mr. BURNES. The salary being $10,000 a year, the amount due for forty days would be just about this sum.

In answer to the inquiry just made by my friend from Illinois [Mr. CANNON] I wish to say that there is nothing wrong or unusual in the presentation of this matter in this way. If any other member has a constituent in a similar situation, all he has to do is to get a proper official certification of the matter from the Secretary of State and the claim would undoubtedly be recognized as a proper object of appropriation.

Mr. CANNON. Are there not a dozen just such cases in the estimates which we did not consider in this urgent deficiency bill?

Mr. BURNES. I think not.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Are there not some?

Mr. BURNES. There may be some cases of consuls or similar officers.

Mr. CANNON. Then we draw the line at ministers?

Mr. BURNES (referring to Mr. Cox, who sat beside him). In such a presence I could not do otherwise. [Laughter.]

The amendment of Mr. BRECKINRIDGE, of Kentucky, was agreed to.

Mr. BURNES. Mr. Chairman, I now move that the committee rise and report the bill, with the various recommendations of the committee and the several amendments, to the House.

The motion was agreed to. The committee accordingly rose, and the bill was passed in the House.

BRIEF COMMENTS UPON THE LEGISLATIVE, EXECUTIVE, AND. JUDICIAL APPROPRIATION BILL.

MAY 26, 1888.

The Committee of the Whole having proceeded at some length with the con sideration of the bill, the Clerk continuing, read as follows:

For the First Auditor of the Treasury, $3,600.

Mr. CRAIN. I make a point of order upon the amount appropriated in the paragraph just read for the salary of the First Auditor of the Treasury. I make this point upon the ground that the provision in the bill is a change of existing law.

Mr. BURNES. Mr. Chairman, in determining the point of order raised by my friend from Texas there is, it seems to me, but one consideration to be entertained by the Chair, and that is purely a question of law. Does the appropriation of $3,600 change existing law? The gentleman from Texas makes the point of order that this is a proposition to change existing law; yet before he takes his seat he tells you that the courts of the country have decided that the failure to appropriate up to the amounts authorized by law does not operate as a repeal or change of the existing law, but that the law remains the same, and the officer may go into the Court of Claims and recover the difference between the amount appropriated and the amount authorized by law.

That is the sole question here, and I undertake to say that the Chair yesterday did not decide that question. On the other hand, other gentlemen when occupying the chair have time and again decided that a failure to appropriate the full sum authorized by law to be paid is not subject to a point of order, is not obnoxious to the rule, because it does not operate as a change of existing law.

Mr. CRAIN. This is to be considered in connection with that provision in the opening paragraph of this bill which says that the amounts appropriated in the bill shall be "in full compensation." There is, therefore, a change of existing law.

Mr. BURNES. The fact this provision is in, as stated by the gentleman from Texas [Mr. CRAIN], "that the following sums be, and the same are hereby, appropriated out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, in full compensation for the service of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1889, for the objects hereinafter expressed, namely," etc., is one thing. There has not been a change for a point of order. If the point of order had been made against those words "in full compensation for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1889 ".

Mr. MCKENNA. The Chair reserved his decision upon the point of order until the proper application had been made. It would have been made by myself.

Mr. BURNES. What became of it?

Mr. MCKENNA.

The Chair reserved the point of order until the committee

reached the point when it would apply.

Mr. BURNES. When the Chair is called upon to decide on that proposition I shall have no hesitation in saying the Chair can well sustain the point of order against this provision. I do not think there is any question about it.

It has been held time and again, continuously from the Forty-fourth Congress up to this hour, that an item in one of the appropriation bills is not a change of existing law as to the salary of an officer, but that by the introduction of the words "in full compensation for the service of the fiscal year" it may be made so, and if the gentleman had made the point of order on that proposition I would not have said a word. Nor will I do so when the Chair is called upon to pass upon that provision in the bill; but, so far as the pending provision is concerned, in my judgment it is not subject to the point of order.

Pending a decision on the point of order, the committee rose.

REMARKS ON THE LEAVENWORTH AND RIO GRANDE RAILROAD

COMPANY.

JULY 10, 1888.

ITS RIGHT OF WAY THROUGH THE INDIAN TERRITORY.

Mr. HARE. I call up the bill (H. R. 7186) to authorize the Leavenworth and Rio Grande Railway Company to construct and operate a railway through the Indian Territory, and for other purposes.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the present consideration of the bill?

There was no objection, and the consideration of the bill was proceeded with. Mr. COBB. Mr. Speaker, I do not propose to urge strenuously my objection in this case, because I do not believe it would be of any use, and it is certainly not my purpose to stop legislation to-night by my opposition on this point. *** Our Western friends here are interested, of course, for their constituents in having these roads constructed. We in the Eastern States have begun to think it does not make any difference how questions of this kind may be determined; that the fate of the Indian is sealed, and therefore it is useless to obstruct the progress of this so-called civilization.

But I wanted to put on record my objections, more by way of protest than anything else. I did not know that this bill was one in which my good friend from Missouri [Mr. BURNES] felt a special interest. I am very much given (I cannot

help it) to yielding to these private solicitations when they come from such men as my friend from Missouri.

Mr. BURNES. I am very much obliged to the gentleman.

Mr. COBB. I do not know whether it is right or not that I should feel this way, but I cannot help it.

Mr. BURNES. I can give my friend from Alabama [Mr. COBB] one satisfaction in return for his courtesy and kindness. I can assure him that this road is being built by one of the strongest and best corporations within my knowledge. It runs through the great city of my friend from Minnesota, Judge RICE. It is now completed from Chicago by way of St. Paul to St. Joseph, the town in which I reside, and the work is now extending beyond my town in the direction of Leavenworth, 30 miles farther, at which point it will strike Kansas and proceed thence to the Rio Grande.

I have no personal interest in the enterprise, but because the road runs through my town the corporation naturally expects and the people there naturally expect that I will do what I can to give the road an easy exit to the Rio Grande. Kansas wants this road, the people of the West want it. I might say I believe the Indians would want it if their concurrence were asked, though I do not know that they have been consulted. The intention is in good faith to build the road in such a manner as to hurt nobody, while adding to the commercial facilities of half a dozen States. I believe my friend from Alabama is doing a valuable service in the interest of the public by sacrificing in this matter a little of his prejudices and a little of his fears that we are treating the Indians unkindly or unjustly.

[At the conclusion of further debate the bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time; and being engrossed, it was accordingly read the third time and passed.]

Mr. BURNES moved to reconsider the vote by which the bill was passed, and also moved that the motion to reconsider be laid on the table.