Mr. GARFIELD. I desire to respond to the points made by my colleague and to say a word or 2 in defense of this section of the bill. Every gentlemen will recognize the difficulty of replying to a written speech which has not been read. but I will respond to the points made orally by my colleague, [Mr. Lawnsxcnj The 1st objection that my colleague raises is, that however good this proposition may be, this is not the time to make it. Now, that is the common argument used op all occasions when gentlemen want to vote any proposition @wn, that now is not the proper time to make it. If the proposition made in this section is important and a proper one, there never has been a time when it was so important as just now for the necessities of our legislation. In the next place, the gentleman says that Webe"? already the Census Bureau, a bureau of statistics much more extensive than this wonld be 1 answer the gentleman by saying, what. be well understands, that the Census Bureau is as nearly valneless for all the practical purposes of legislation as any bureau of statistics could well be. We really have no Census Bureau in any efficient or potential sense. We have not yet received the results of what was taken as the census of 1860, and the whole condition of our affairs has so changed since then that the report on the census of 1860 will be almost valueless. But what is more, the Census Bureau never has furnished statistics at all. We do get something from them about manufactures and something on the subject of imports and exorts, but we have nothing on earth that is calls for in the consideration of propositions of this kind. Let the gentleman look at it for a moment. I hold that the excuse which the ComWays&Means is comelled to make and is entitled to make‘to the Iouse and the country for nothavin perfected much earlier in the session a comp ete tarilf bill is because they have had to work in the original quarry and have had nothing furnished to their hands. The revenue commission appointed under the act of the last session of Congress did nobly for us in the internalrevenue dept; but they had not time to go forward and perform the immense work of preparing anything 'rcliable or complete on the subject of imports. See how perfectly the work is done in GreatBritain, a country which has reduced the matter to almost an exact science. We look to that country now for the statistics even of our own affairs. Every month there is published and putin the hands of every legislator of GreatBritain a pa%aining, most accurately stated, all the items from which revenue is derived, all the items of importation and exportation and of the free list, and a complete classification of the navigation, commerce, and trade of GreatBritain; and at the end of the year there is a complete sum mary made, so that every legislator in that country can hold in his hand he facts and no man can stand 11 and lecture at calhedrd on any subject oflegislation connected with finance or taxation unless he is able to lay his finger on the facts. Now, when a question comes u here and I am asked to say whether the tari on a iven article shall be 10% or a hundr'e%, I want to know all the circumstances and all the facts about the article; where it is produced, whether we can produce it or not, what rice it bears in the market, what capital is invested in producing it, and all other circumstances connected with it. But now [am compelled to come here with empty hands, and I cannot from all the volumes 0 our Library find out what I desire to know. It was but the other day that I called upon the Librarian and kept him busily at work for half an hour to find for ‘me the market price of nickel, and he could not find it in anv of our books.