Mr. BOUTWELL. Mr. Speaker, nobody can be more reluctant than I am to oppose a measure of a committee of this House or any Dept of the Government. But I am in clined to maintain the position that under no Icirenmstances ought this House to confide to any aflent of the Government authority to did inish the non-interest bearing legal tender notes. I am altogether opposed to endowing an agent to do that which we think ought not to be done. If this House will look at the condition of the country with reference to its finances, it seems to me it can reach but one conclusion, mad that is, that the bill submitted by my collleague [Mr. Hooraa] is one which ought to reccive the support of this House and of the country and I have an observation to make to the gentlemen on this side of the House. After having passed through 4 years of the greatest peri, both in a military and financial point of view, I submit that now is not the time to accept gifts from the Greeks, and that it is now a matter of honor as well as of right that those who sit on this side of the House and represent a mayority of the loyal people of this country should define and limit the financial policy of the Administration. We have $450,000,000 of non bearing interest currency. We have $260,000,000 0t national bank currency, which may reach the maxi mum of $300,000,000, making $750,000,000in all. We have in addition to that $180,000,000 of legal tender notes bearing interest, which added to the currency amounts to something more than 900 million dollars. Under this condition of things gold is today quoted at 128} Last Frida it was 130. It is proposed on this side of the House, by those who object to the measure of the ComWays&Means, that the currency of the country shall be reduced, between now and the 1st day of December next, at the discretion of the SecyTreasury, $180,000,000, or about 20%. of the existing currency of the country and if, as gentlemen contend a proposition which I do not admit the price of gold follows the vol ume of the currency of the country. then gold should stand, with that reduction, at 105 when Congress reassembles in December next. That, sir, is as much as the business of the country can bear. But ifin addition to that a further reduction is made of $100,000,000, as is proposed, 3 quarters of the manufactories of the central and northern portions of the country will be suspended. Sir, it is not a question whether laborers shall be able to earn a dollar and a half or a dollar a day, but it is a question of work and subsistence for 8,000 people that I represent in one of the cities of Libssachusetts. Therefore I should be false to my trust if I hesitated to say that a limit should be fixed shall not go in this condition of public affairs. We ofier to fix it at $450,000,000 non-bearing interest legal tender; $300000,000 national bank currency, and if that reduction be made, specie will approximate to par with papernext December. beyond which the SecyTreasury V The authority to reduce the currency without limit is a vast authority to confide to any It gives the Secretary the power to man. make every man in the country, between the Rio Grande and the StJohn, weep or laugh, any day at pleasure. I, for one, can consent to no such proposition, and yet I feel bound to say that there is no man whose general financial policy I would more heartily support than that of the SecyTreasury, and should look upon it as a calamity if his place should be occupied by any other man whom it is my fortune to know. But notwithstanding this feeling, and although we are all aware that this power is not to be exercised, et. by confiding it to him you give the people reason to apprehend that at some time the power may be exercised by him or by his successor, who ever he may be, and that apprehension will be constant weight upon the business interests of the country. I appeal to the chairman of the ComWays&Means to allow this bill to be recommitted to his committee without instructions and take their judgment after this debate. If he will agree to allow the motion to recommit to be made, I think I may say thatwe will not object to the reconsideration; but if the committee insist that there shall be no recommitment of the bill, then there is no course for us but to vote against the motion to reconsider the vote of Friday last.