Mr. HOWARD. I cannot vote for this bill as I understand it. I understand that the National Telegraph company is a private corpo ration created within the past few weeks by the Legislature of the State of NewYork. It is not pretendezl that the company have taken a sing c step toward establishing a line of tele graph anywhere within the U.S. All they have is the parchment charter granted by the State of NewYork under the great seal of the State; and at present that is their only corporate property, it I am not misinformed. They have not bought a pound of wire, nor a post, nor a spade, uor employed a single agent or laborer to commence worli anywhere within the wide world. The bill itself does not des ignate any place where the contemplated line of telegrapli shall commence or where it shall end; and for aught that up ears in the bill, the company, when it shall have received the benefits contemplated by the bill, may at once, by the consent of Congress, sell them out to the present monopoly, and that monopoly will acquire the right to construct another line of telegraph lying right along side of the one which they now occupy and use; or they may construct a line somewhere else; but if they should become the purchasers they would probably be shrewd enough to understand that their rivht is to construct another line of telegraph side by side with the one which they now own and use; and in doing this they would have the right to take all the material they should find necessary for its construction and growing or being upon the public domain of the U.S., where their line should happen to be. They are authorized, in the language of the bill, to pre'cmpt a quarter section of land, that is, 160 acres, at each and every one of their stations. The number of their stations is not given; the distance which they are to be from one to another is not provided for, and for aught that appears in this bill, the corporation would have a right to preempt a series of 160 acre lots wherever they could find them lying along in a range or in a row touching upon one another. They have a right to put a station at every mile or every half mile on their entire route, and to enter upon and occupy and use this public land as their own, in fee ‘sim le, clear across the continent, without let or in derancc. That is the effect of the bill, whether we treat the bill as being for the benefit of the National Telegraph Company, or of some other company, with or without a name. ll at I object to particularly in this bill is its entire looseness, its generality. It fixes no beginning and no terminus to the line which is in contemplation; and it is just as easy for the present monopoly to purchase it and to unite it and consolidate it with the existing line, and thus unite the 2 interests, as it is to pass this bill through Congress. All this may be done, and easily done, without removing in the slight est degrec the oppression under which the commercial community is now laboring arising from the high price 0 vtelegraphing. 1 must confess that the bill loo s to me like an undisguised attempt on the part of this new company, that I owns not a dollar of corporate propert, to acquire important and valuable rights an val. uable lands belonging to the U.S. merely for the purpose of selling out its charter to some other company, and making a large profit out of the operation. Why not fix the line? Why not say tothis company, “ If you accept the land and the other privileges granted by the bill commence your line at such a place, run upon such a arallel of latitude toward the Pacific coast, an terminate it at such a place; if you will do this, we will grant on these privileges; ifyou will not, we withho d them Y" I‘hat would be to institute a competition, as it seems to me, between the existing monopoly and the corporation about which we are speaking. As t ie bill now stands, whether it be amended or not according to the suggestion of the honorable Senfrom lowa, granting this socalled privilege to any and all coma nies, I cannot vote for it, for I do not think that amendment makes any difference whatever, or in any degree removes the objectionable feat ures from the bill.