Mr. LAFLIN. Mr. Speaker, I do not de sire the House shall act upon this resolution without thoroughly uuderstanding its meaning. The dommittcc have instructed me to introduce it for 2 reasons, one, that our Printing office may be relieved of a great burden that rests upon it, the other that they run understand from the disposition which the House chooses to make of this resolution what shall be their action in the future with reference to resolutions of this character referred. to them. The committee are happy to acknowledge the very kind and generous manner in which the House have received their reports, and it is because they have met these reports in this manner that they do not care at this time to introduce a resolution of this character without full explanation, so that each member of the House may fully understand its purport and meaning. In introducing this resolution they are aware that they are met at the outset with a great prejudice, and thatprcjudice arises from the fact that in the minds of many members of this House whenever “Patent Report” is mentioned there is at once associated with it the Agricultural Report. I wish to say to the House in the 1st place that this has nothing whatever to do with the Agricultural Report. It is the mechanical part of the Patent Office report and I wish to say further that none of these reports have been published since the year 1862. Today we have orders for 160,000 volumes of the Patent Office reports for 1863 and 1864 yet unfilled. Now, the time has come when the committee must determine where and how they shall reduce these orders, because they are met with the unpleasant fact (and I want every member of the House to listen to this) that the orders already presented to the Government Printin Office are so enormous that if the House should at this very moment decline to present nnyfur ther orders, those orders could not be executed In less than a year. it is not simply aquestion whetherthese books are valuable and w lether they ought“: be pub, thoshed, but whether they ought to be published the exclusion of other valuable books. I know there is a feeling in this House in favor of printing Agricultural Reports, and yet if none of these orders are withdrawn or counter manded, and if the Superintendent of Public Printing takes them in the order in which they are given, it will be impossible for any member of this House to receive a copy of the Agricultural Report for 1865 until this Congress exires. p Now, sir, there are a few in this House who begin to estimate the amount that is expended in publishing these reports. It is not neces nary for us to urge this with reference to this particular question. But since I am on the floor, I think it is due to our committee, to this I House, and to the questions that will come, before us, that gentlemen should understand! the reason for the action of this committee,; and the reason that will guide them hereafter in their reports. I wish to say that I have thoroughly examined this subject, so that I can speak from the book. I make statements here to which I chal lenge successful contradiction. The are taken from our own official reports, and i necessary I can verify them item by item. In the 1st place, the amount of paperused by the Government of the U.S. during the last year amounted to one 13th of the value of all the papermanufactured in the U.S., accordin to the census of 1860. I want members of the House to consider the bearing of this fact upon the great interests of the country. I want every newspaperin the land to know that this Government, through its officials here, is the most to be dreaded competitor in the market for the very goods! they use. I wish it could be placed conspicu ously in the margin of every newspaper, and upon the fly leaf of every school book and Bible that the Government of the U.S. in one year consumes one 13th in value of all the papermanufactured in this country in 1860. Here let me give you the figures: Amount of paperpaid for by the Governmentin 1865 and l, a little over $1.700.000 Value of papermanufact s as appearsfrom censusforyear 1860. 23, 154.0fll Sir if ou will go with me to the cities of New Work and Philadelphia and inquire of the publishers what is the effect of this enormous usiness of the Government, you will be told by them that there is not an order that comes from Washington for paperthat is not felt by the whole trade. Why, sir, as a newspaperpublisher, I would not desire any better protection of my interest in the way of reducing the price of aper, than a reduction of the consumption of paperat Washington. It would operate far better than a reduction of the tariff. Again, Mr. Speaker, I find this Government is the greatest publishing house in the world. There is not an establishment in the U.S. nor in Europe that begins to compare with our Government printing establishment. I find that during the last year we paid for printing one 2 fth of the value of all the publications in the U.S. in 1860, including newspapers, pam hlets, and all. Would anyone believe it 1 think of it. Right here, in the city of Washington, this Government publishes one 12th in value of allthe publications of every kind in the U.S., as returned by the census in 1860. Now, look at the data upon which this statement is based: Amount paid for Government printing in 1865and. saroomo Value P crs, hooks, pamphlets. &c. as appears from censusof 1860. 3163, 898 and here it is due to the Houses of Congress to state that by far the lnr est proportion of the expenses incurred above we been made not by Congress but by the various Depts of the Government. Now, sir, there are but 3 courses that this House can pursue: we must either countermnnd or curtail the orders that have already been given, to say nothing of the orders yet to be given; or we must wait for the publication of such orders as are now given for a year or a car and a half; or we must enlarge our printing Dept. Now, the sum and substance of this resolution is to avoid the choice of either of the 2 latter courses. We do not want to wait a year or a year and a half for books already ordered neither, since it is a fact that we have the largest printing establishment in the world, do we wish to enlarge it. We have, therefore, only one course left to us, and that is to reduce our orders. the question came before the committee, where should we reduce? We found that the Patent Office Reports for 1863and 1864are yet wanting. We found that we had ordered for each year 20,000 extra copies of the mechanical part of the Patent Office Itcport, and that makes 40,000 volumes. 1 wish to say here that the expense of this thing is pgrfectly enor mous. It costs us $2 86 } er cOpy. Now, the committee have propose to cut that down, and they have proposed to cut it down with the hope that other parties if I may not. be permitted to refer to the other end of the Ca itol that other parties will follow our examp e, and that the reduction will be still greater. I wish to state that I have made a very close and accurate estimate of the amount. that is to be saved on this very article of the Mechanical Report. Mind you, we give the ComrPatents 15,000extra copies for each year, at an expense of $2 86}. There will be a saving to the Government, if we igdo t this resolution, of $128, 700 on this very oo and here I maybe met with the inquiry why the ComPrintin have seen fit to give 10,000 extra copies to the ComrPatents and only 5,000 to the House.