Mr. BLAINE. I am not talking about mile age. I am talkin about the expenses of living after the various posts of service shall have been reached. I was talking only yesterday with an officer who has served in the Rocky mountains and at Fort Bridger. The Government has had to contract there for wood at nearly 100 dollars er cord and corn at 12 dollars a bushe and flour at 75 dollars a barrel. I submit that if you send a brigadier general out there under the pay provided in this bill and compel him to forego all the privileges of commutation he cannot feed 2 horses and keep 2 servants on his entire pay. The Gentfrom Ohio says he does not draw his rations in kind but takes commutation. I know that is the case, but he draws it in commutation of value at the point where he is stationed. If a cord of wood costs $100 where he is stationed, he is entitled to commutation for that. If it costs only 8 dollars he is entitled only to that. But this bill abolishes this whole resource of the officer and leaves him the same arbitrary amount of:iy, no matter where he may be stationed, an utterly regardless of the extraordinary expenses to which he may be subjected. Now, Mr. Speaker, the principle of commutation, with which the gentleman finds so much fault, has been in vogue ever since the organization of our Army, and is in practice in every other army on the globe, I believe. One would suppose that a system so extended and uniform must have something of justice and reason and necessity and common sense to rest upon. Let us pursue this question a little further. Take 2 officers of the same rank, station one of them in the city of Washington and the other at the base of the Rocky mountains, and give them the same salary; the one at Washington will be able to live comfortably upon his pay, while the one at the baseof the Rocky mountains will starve on his pay. Now, why should you, under the plea of equalizing the pay of the Army, subject an officer at a distant post to this additional hardship and this unendurable expense? Let me say in this connection that in my judgment the chairman of the ComMilAffrs yielded the whole question when he put an amendment on this bill allowing forage to be drawn in kind. Why allow forage to be drawn in kind more than fuel? Why should there be commutation on that more than on anything else which hitherto has been commuted? The necessities are the same in the one case as in the other; the hardships are the same; the circumstances and facts are precisely the same. And I can see no logical reason why in the one case there should be commutation, and in the other there should be none. The gentleman says the mounted officer should have it because he has horses to provide for. Why makea distinction between mounted. officers and officers on foot, and not make any between officers in different localities? The difference of necessary exease of living between a cavalry officer an infantry officer at the same post is not half so great as the possible difference between 2 infantry officers located at different posts. In reply to the question of 'economyI beg to say a single aword. It does not seem entirely clear that any money would be saved to the Treasury even if this bill should be adopted just as the committee has reported it. Under its provisions some officers would get decidedly more than they do today, even with all these commutatio s. NCK. IE. I admit that many of them ', but those would get less who Most of them would get can least afford to take less. I beg the House not to be carried off into a support of this arbitrary principle because there may be some abuses in the case of bureau officers. I know there have been abuses. Iwill refer to one which made some little noise at the time. When General Halleck was here in Washington as Generol in Chief of the Army, with the rank of major general, by a certain construction of commutation and allowances he drew some 2200 dollars more pay than either GenlGrant or GenlSherman, commanding armies in the field, with the same rank. That was a great abuse. But I do not see why you should correct the abuse in this way, by creating a new abuse in making iinjlulrious discriminations between officers in the e. You may question any officer in the Army, and he will tell you this is unjust. Apply this bill as drafted to an expedition like the one sent to 'Utah by President Buchanan. Sup gose you had said to the officers of thatexpedition that they should have no commutation I for rations, no commutation for fuel or forage. The 2nd lieutenant, on his pay of $1, 600 a year, being obliged to buy his own rations and fuel and forage, the clothing and rations for his servant, could not have lived through that winter on double the amount of his entire pay. I trust the House will bear in mind that the great amount of services to be performed by our Army hereafter will be at just such exposed points as those to which I have referred. If you choose to send a lot of men out into tne wilderness to fight the Indians, to guard the overland mail route, or to protect the Pacific railroad, do not send them out there to starve, $"they would do under the provisions of this I.