Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. President, every special case that appeals to the Treasury, has its placebo, its excuse for failure. The building of iron vessels was no new thing no new thing in America, no new thing in Europe. We are not to suppose that our officers made the plans without information as to how far the science had progressed in other countries. I do not. impeach them with any such want of judgment and skill as to suppose that they went on blundering ignorantly without knowing what had been done in other countries. I have no question in my own mind that most of these men have lost money; I think they have. lost money, principally because of the alterations that were made; and I should be glad to have some criterion devised upon which I could vote for settling their bills, so that we might be done with them. The dillienlty I have is in coming 11 to the point that this Government is to establish now and forever the principle that no man who contracts with it is to lose, and that it is to act upon the principle hereafter that the contract price is not to be the rule of compensation. f the contractors then swell the cost of work that they have undertaken to perform, it is nothing to them. They will not care how high wages go, for Uncle Sam is to pay. will not agree to establish that principle; but still these men have suffered by the chan c of plans and the additional time required to of the original work, throwing them into more expensive times. I would be willing to furnish a criterion of compensation ifI knew what it was. The chairman of the Naval Committee seems to fix upon 12%.: the Senfrom Nevada fixes it at 15%. I should like to have these bills settfdd at the one or the other, and that we should be done with them; but I beg you, gentlemen, not to establish the principle that a contractor with the Government is never to lose, let his work cost him what it will. such a rule would not do in private life among individual citizens. In extraor dinary cases of hardship or of difficulty, individuals, who are able to do so. compensate the contractor bevond the contract price. That is an appeal to his own sense of equit and justice on account of the misfortune of teman who has made the contract. But when we come to make general rules and declare the general principle that we are to compensate all these men, we take from them their interest in the result of their work and we are to pay the bills. Allusion has been made to the depreciation of the currency, and that is urged as an argument in favor of this bill. Why, sir, there is no intelligent man but what takesthatinto consideration in mnkingncontract. Hoestimates the cost and the hazards that he willincur. All those things are within his contemplation at the time. If you are going to make compensation for the difference between the contract price and the value of the money when it was paid. to all the soldiers who received your pay, to all the officials to whom you paid salaries, and to all the contractors who contracted to deliver to you on time all the supplies for the Army and Navy that have enabled this country to carry on the most stupendous war that has happened in our time or that I hope ever will happen on the continent of America, it will be an endless and ruine us job, and you will never be done settling the cost of this war. I do not wish to set u my judgment against the judgment of anybo y. f it is the sense of the Senate that it should extend its hand to relieve the calamities of the contractors who have failed, be it so; butI have seen enough of this case to see that some of these parties have failed in the construction of precisely the same class of vessels in regard to which other parties have made no complaint, thus showing that the failure in the one case was owing to the want of skill and knowledge of the contractor and not to any faullof the Government. There is no period in the history of the nation, when you are carrying on a great war or great constructions and improvements, thatthis same thing will not happen some will fail while others make money. I felt bound to say this much on these few points. I am not willing to establish the rule that we will compensate every contractor for the cost of the work that he contracts to do, or that we will take into consideration the difference in the value of money and the value of labpr during the whole period of the contract; but still, wherever the loss has been occasioned by the action of the Government in delayin the specifications or requiring additional work that could not have been fairly calculated upon when the contract was made, I think there is ground for equitable compensation, and I feel willing and ready to vote for it.