Mr. FESSENDEN. We made a provision a year or 2 ago for the female employees who received $600 a year, and for the messengers, the mere laborers of the Dept, giving them an additional %age; but we refused utterly to raise the salary of the clerks generally. What we did was simply this, and it was the only way to reach it: in the Treasury Dept there are several clerks whose. services are absolutely indispensable; they are very able men, and men who could be heads of bureaus, who were absolutely necessary to the working of the Dept. They were leaving us at the rate of 8 or 10 a week. Why? Because they got salaries of $1, 800 1 and $2,000, when they could go out of the Dept and receive $3,000, $3, 500, and $4,000; and we were losing them fast, so that we could not carry on the business of some of the bureaus. You could not supply their places; that was out of the question; and for that reason an appropriation was made out of which the Secretary was empowered to increase the salaries of certain clerks where he thought the public interests required it. It was the only way in which the business of the Dept could be kept on at all. But we utterly refused to apply any portion of that appropriation to raising the sa aries generally of the clerks in the Dept. Since then, the clerks who did not get any of it, and who are overpaid, or paid amply the 1st class clerks, for instance, who get $1, 200, the most of whom do not earn any more than that, and of whom on could get 5,000 at any time made a bowl about it, and said, “Here you have bemraising the salaries of persons whoreceive the biggest compensation, and not given those who receive the least anything.” hat is true in point of fact; but the reasons are perfectl obvipus. We were obliged to do it. he!!! i; a very great difference in the men. We could get lenty of boys at $1, 200 a year, and it is all they earn, and probably ample play for them; but you cannot get accomplished, able men, who are fit to be presi Tdents and cashiers of banks, for anything like that sum. The new banks that were made in the country were taking these men out of the Treasury Dept every day in the week, and the only way of meeting the difficulty was precisely in the mode I have suggested. Now, these clerks of the State Dept come in and ask for an increase of 20%., when that 20%. increase has not been given in any case to any of the clerks in any of the Depts. I will sa to the Senator, if he proposes to make an increase of the pay of the clerks there, the properway to do it is to ask the SecyState to recommend it in the 1st place. The difficulty with the SecyState is, that he will not recommend anything. He just sits there and says, “Go to Congress, ” and will not let us know his opinion. If he thinks that the sal aries in his Dept ought to be increased, let him take the responsibility of sayin so under his hand, and saying what class O clerks oughtto be paid an increase, and how much, and then we will consider it; but we cannot et a word, and do not get a word, from the State Dept on the subject. They will recommend nothing; but they will let the clerks come here petitioning, without ving us the information as to how much they ought to receive and what classes ought to be made of them. In the next place, this is not the properplace to put it. It should be put where w. but all such provisions, on the executive and cgislative appropriation bill, which covers all the expenses of all the Depts, and not on the diplomatic and consular bill.