Mr. POMEROY. In reply to the Senfrom Oregon, I will say that I do not understand the question to be whether the clerks in the arsenal shall have the same compensation as the clerks in the Depts, but it is whether they shall have the same increase of compensation. I do not know for my own art what their compensation is, or whether it is established by law at all. I suppose that it is not established by law but by regulation of the Dept. I am satisfied at any rate that if we intend to increase the compensation of those whose salaries are established by law there is no better way of defeating it than by putting on W.” everybody else. have as profound a respect for the laborer as the Senfrom Ohio, having been a laborer all my life, at the same time I understand that his wages are paid under a regulation of the Dept, under a rate of wages that may be raised or lowered from month to month. There is nothing binding in law about it. If they are not paid sufficient then it is the duty of the person employing them to pay them more, and has a right to do it under existing law, and it requires no legislation. But the salaries of these laborers in the Depts who expect help by the measure now before the Senate are fixed. The heads of the Depts cannot raise them if they would; and that is the reason why this resolution especially commends itself to us in legislating upon the question. For my own part, I think that we should make a regular increase of compensation rather than leave compensation to be distributed according to the discretion of any executive officer. Some clerks have left the Depts during the past year from the highest motives, and they will not be compen sated if this resolution is passed. It is only those more subservient men who have stayed there during the year and are now in the depts who will be benefited by this resolution. During last summer and autumn there were very many who left the Depts. Some perhaps were turned out; others, left because there were somethings required of them that were distasteful, or because their salaries were inadequate. Some very good reasons I have no '.compelled them to leave; and yet this resolution goes back over the ground and pays those who stayed in; it does not propose to pay a cent to those who left, even though they labored through the same portion the year that this resolution contemplates granting increased pay for. That is one objection I have to the manner of compensation proposed by this resolution. If it could be made prospective entirely, looking forward and not back, this objection would be obviated; but to pay for a portion of the year when a number of the clerks, and some of the very best clerks, too, left the service from the best of motives, and cannot reap the benefit of it, is only paying a sort of a premium for those who stayed. I do not object to paying this increase, because I think the salaries are too small to those who stayed; but the remedy will not be entirely perfect if it leaves out those who were obliged to leave, and who served some of them many months during the same period for which we propose to pay extra compensation shall vote for the measure generally; but I have no idea that it can be passed if we eneum ber it with every laborer in Washington in the Government employ. If we do that we must extend it to the laborers outside of Washington who are in Government employ; for those in Washington, in the navy yard or in the arsenal, have no greater claims upon us than the laborers whom we employ in other parts of the country. They are just as poorly paid in NewYork and NewEngland, just as poorly paid in the West, and perhaps more so, than they are here. If this resolution is encumbered by such amendments it will never be passed. If it can be confined strictly to those who are in service in these Depts perhaps it can; I think it can. At any rate I shall vote for it.