Mr. MERCUR. Mr. Speaker, in addition to the objections, which appear to me to be personal to the present Provost Marshal General, it strikes me there are many objections to the establishment of this bureau as a permanent one. The reasons for its existence during the war were manifest; but it strikes me that the reasons which exist for its abolishment since the termination of the war are equally manifest. The bill, upon its face, provides for 2 classes of duties to he performed by this bureau. The one is the recruiting of the Arm, and the other is the arrest of deserters. t provides that 2 persons shall take charge of these duties, one with the rank of brigadier general and the other with the rank of colonel of cavalry. Now, it appears to me that all these duties can be properly performed by a person occupying a power position, and rcceivmg much less compensation than these persons would receive. The recruitin of t Army is not a business of such vast dimensions nor will it be prolonged so long as to reqpire the creation of a permanent bureau like t is. After the Army is filled, and we are in formed that during the last 6 months recruiting has gone on very rapidly, this will not be needed, and whatever number we may fix upon as the pror number for the Army, we have reason to now that the vacuum can be filled up in a few months without any great difficulty; and when the Army is once filed on a eace establishment the duties of abureau of this. kind, so far as recruiting is concerned, will necessarily be very small. Now, in regard to the other duties of this office, the arrest of deserters, I take it that there cannot now be a very large number of deserters that the Government proposes to par sue and arrest and punish. In these da s of general amnesty and of general pardon, presume the Government will not pursue very sharpl and ti idly those persons who have dese rte from the armies of the Union and if there is no great number of deserters now who are to be arrested, is it to be supposed or assumed that the number will increase to such an extent in the future as to create a necessity for a permanent bureau to look after and arrest desert ers? I think not; and hence I assume that neither for the one purpose nor the other spe cified in the bill is there any necessity for the creation of a permanent bureau of this character. Now, in addition to the absence of any necessity for this bureau, it does strike me, if I understand the sentiment of the country aright, a sentiment which grew and strengthened with the progress of the recent rebellion, that the present ead of this bureau did not satisf public expectation in the discharge of his uties. It is not my design to attriate a want of good faith or a Want of integrityto that bureau. n my judgment, though may err, it was a want of capacity which create the great dissatisfaction which existed in the minds of the loyal people throughout the The fact cannot be disgucisoeudntry. that a great many of the complications and entanglements which arose during the progress of the war were solely in consequence of the orders which issued them time to time from the Provost Marshal Generals Office. They complicated matters so much, one followed the other in such rapid succession, changiu, modifying, and throwing confusion upon what had preceded, that no one could form any adequate idea of what was required. No district could tell how many men it had to raise, or how many men they had received credit for. such being the fact, there is no reason, no justice, no propriety, in continuing this bureau for the benefit of the present incumbent. The Gentfrom NewYork [Mr. Comt LING] has suggested one thing in which this bureau was somewhat conspicuous, that is, its power of absortion of the commutation money which was pai by people all over the country, and of which no satis actory account has yet been rendered. But there was another reutation which this bureau established, and that was its peculiar and unique way of combining figures. The country was frequently astou ished by this rare and peculiar power of combining ures, not only during tic progress of the war, utaince wehave met ieret is session. I refer to the effort made to arrive at the probaIblecost to this Government in case we should adopt some system of equalizing the bounties to be given to our soldiers. We met here, every man of us zealous and warm in his desire to equalize the beauties. Butthe Provost Mar shal General, with his peculiar combination of figures, has again thrown a damperu on us. It strikes me thatthe House ought with great unanimity to vote down this section and cause this bureau to be abolished.