Mr. WADE. I am not able to say what the aggregate of the proposed increase is. I do not know how much it will amount to. I have never summed it up. This proposition adds to all these employees about 25%. on their present salaries, the object being, according to the instructions of the committee at the time they prepared it, to ecpualize the salaries of the Senate employees with I those of the House. What we have added will vary but little from 25%. on their present salaries, except perhaps in the ease of the Sergeant at Arms, to whom we give a greater increase than that. Now, Mr. President, if we go by the finer ple we have already laid down in this bill, if we increase our own salaries over 60%., I think these employees might well be increased to the amount oia 25%. I cannot imagine what argument Senators Will make, after voting to increase their own sala ries to the amount of about 60%. against increasing the salaries of the employee at least 25%. I do not think there is anything extravagant in this proposition'for the equalization of these salaries. The House came to a conclusion on the subject as to what the supposed their employes ought to have, and I believe they passe a resolution giving their employees the salaries which this amendment proposes to give the corresponding officers of the Senate. It is said, however, that what they undertook to do they were not authorized to do, and that it may be stricken out; butthat will make no difference finally if Congress should come to the conclusion that the increase was not unreasonable and that it was judicious to distribute it among their employes. I suppose if it was illegal when the xed it, if it was so adjud' ed by us, we could make it legal, and it would not alter the reportion, and would not change the propriety of this bill. I will say, however, that the special committee that was raised with directions to equalize the salaries of the Senate employes with those of the House, e unlized upon the hy pothesis that what the goose had done was or would be made legal, and that it would stand as the judgment of the House that their sala ries ought to be enhanced to that amount. It was upon that ground that we acted, without exercising any particular judgment as to what might be deemed right. In fact, there is no criterion by which you can measure the compensation of these employees. You will have to measure some by what they have heretofore received, with the additional excases that everybod is at to at present; a it will be a matter 0 judgment in every one who is called upon to pass on such a question. I know of no exact criterion or any particular rule by which we can regulate the question. It seems to me, however, that the arrangement here is a judicious one. It does not alter materially the relation of the compensation of the em‘ ployes except in the case of the Sergeant at Arms, who Fknow has received a very slender compensation for the services he has rendered. l He has performed the duties that are performed by some 3 or 4 officers of the other House, and I believe their combined compensation would be somethinglike 8,000 dollars perannum. Inecll not speak of his merits. “very gentleman knows with what faithfulness he has attended to his duties here; that he has always been at his place; that all the machinery under him has gone on, so far as I am able to judge, like perfect clock work.