Mr. SHERMAN. I have not seen the SecyTreasury since the gold was sold. I know nothing about it but what I see in the public prints. I have never conversed with the Secretary about the sale of gold. My own judgment is that the time for the sale of the Government gold has passed, and that if the Secretary has more than he wants for the legit imate purpose of paying the interest on the public debt, it would be much wiser to apply that old directly to the purchase of bonds of the fiU.S. as they mature. That has been my feeling for a year past, since the war has been over. But that is neither here nor there. The ageutuselect d by Mr. McCulloch to sell gold, I understand, is not a relative in any sense, not even in a remote sense. He is a very distant relation of the Secretary’s wife, and that so distant that if I could state it to you and I cannot correctly although it was given to. me by a person who knew it would excite a smile. This man was an ordinary broker in NewYork who received one 8th of 1%., the ordinary commission for selling gold. But. if that is an unreasonable commission for the sale of gold and taking so fearful a responsibility as this, what should be said of the commission allowed by the SecyNavy some years ago of 5%. to buy vessels, which I believe is 40 timesas much as the commission allowed to this man for scllin gold? At the same time the SecyTreasury cannot be seriously blamed for this, because he was ignorant of it. His general authority to the agent was to keep gold at a certain stand ard, 130, and he did keep it at that standard; it was kept for nearly a year varying between 125 and 135, gradually declining. 'Ihc policy of the Secretary was to keep it not above 130, looking to a gradual reduction and resumption of specie payments. That was not only stated by him in his annual report, but it was a fact of public notoriety. Whenever gold went above 130, some wasthrown into the market; usualy, 100,000 dollars or halfa million dollars was sufficient to stop any inclination to rise above that: but he was not prepared for this extraordinary state of affairs which came over the wires from Europe.