Mr. HOWE. Would it not have that effect necessarily? If the Secretary issues 100 millions of bonds and gets in but 90 millions of TTOESUIK notes or certificates of in debtedness, does e not increase the public debt to the extent of $10000,000. either he must disregard that last clause or he must sell not below par. If this bill be designed to authorize the Secretary to sell bonds such as are described in the act of 1865 below par, Iam utterly opposed to it. I conceive there is no sort of necessity for investing him with such authorit, and I cannot conceivethat any policy can justify it, but I do think we should a ways allow any blic creditor holding any of these notes which do not bear interest to exchange these notes for the obligations of the Government which do bear interest, and when we do so enable him, (I believe the laws now authorizethat) I do not see what other authority the Secretary wants for retiring those notes. [hen the holder of the notes who is the owner of them can determine for himself whether he would rather use them as money or turn them into the Treasury and take interest paying bonds for them. The proviso to this section, as I understand it, instead of making the billless objectionable makes it more objectionable. The proviso says to the Secretary that, although the holders of this money which does not bear interest may come forward and pay in 100 or 200 millions of it and take interest paying bonds, he shall not retire these notes from circulation for a year. It says to him, “You shall not retire more than 34 millions in the aggregate of these notes.” I conceive that in the regular course of business the country will seek and will want to retire a good deal more than 34 millions within a year. The necessity for this very large and swollen circulation was abun dantly explained by the Senfrom Kentucky [Mr. GUTHll IE] just now. Previous to this war all the use you had for circulation was, so to s ealr, to aid the exchanges of the agriculture products for the manufactured and imported products of the country. When, as the Senfrom Kentucky remarked, the Government became almost the sole purchaser of all those products there was nothing to do but just pay outmoney forthem, and if they had paid gold ibr all these things the circulation would have been increased Just about as much as it has been. The Government has done nothing but payits debts; that is all it has done, to increase the circulation. The Government is done making those purchaSes; its armyis disbanded in the main; it has done making the purchases which it was compelled to may etroughout the whole course of the War. Henceforth the old system of doing business isto be resumed; but the arrearages are not yet quite paid up. The Government is, therefore, disbursing largely to pay up those arrears es, and so this plethora is not so acutely felt at the present time as I take itit would be if those arrearages were paid up. When those arrearages are paid and business assumes its old forms and shapes and courses, I donot understand why wo should need a vast deal more money to do the business of the country hereafter than we did before the war. At all events, I should he very unwilling to say to the SecyTreasury, as this proviso.does say, that no matter if 100 or 200 millions of this noninterest paying paperbe taken into the Treesury in exchange for bonds you must still keep it there in the form of circulation and disburse it in the regular disbursements of the Treasury. I think when 100 more millions of bonds are issued in exchange for 100 millions of Treasury notes, we ought to cancel those Treasury notes and thenceforth they ought to cease to do the work of money. But, as I said before and that is pretty much all I want tosay certainly if it is the purpose of this bill to enable the SecyTreasury to sell a bond of the U.S. now, in a time of peace, bearing any rate of interest that he puts upon it under the bill, at less than its face, I am opposed to it. I ee, also, entirely with the Senfrom Michigan, [Mr. CHANDLER] that although we cannot very well exclude the people of any country from coming here and buying our bonds. yctI am oppose utterly to putting any word into this bil which will seem like clothing the SecyTreasury with authority to o to England or to o anywhere outside of the ffimits of the U.S.tates, to peddle the credit of the U.S. If there ever was any necessity for that, that necessity has passed; I am one of those who believe there never was a particle of necessity for it, and the result has verified this statement.