Mr. PRICE. I am not aware of there being any report. Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the stress of weather by which this bill has been incumbered is clearing up, the fog is lifting, and its friends feel pleasure in finding it on the open sea of free discussion. Iwill say at the commencement that I do not propose to indulge in any attempts at oratory or eloquence in reference to this bill. I am of opinion that it is a matter of dollars and cents, facts and figures. Unless the facts and the figures will establish the other important fact that the bill has merits of its own and ought to pass this House, then I, as one of the advocates of the bill, as one of the committee who report it to this House, am perfectly willing to see it voted down. This Northern Pacific railroad was chartered. at the 1st session of the 38 h congress, and gives an extensive grant of lands to the company. Nothing, as I understand, has been done by the company up to this time. for the reason that the lands granted cannot be 1 made available for the purposesintended. They now come forward and ask additional assist anee in the she. e of a guarantee of a certain amount of stocfi to enable them to make the 5 grant available. I want gentlemen to remember that it is a limited amount of stock for a limited time. Treasury. l The only question to be settled in reference to this matter is, whether the guarantees that the Government is to give to the company who agree to the construction of this road will be repaid to the Government and the country by the benefits derived from it. On the 1st 380 miles of this road the bill proposes to guarant stock to the amount of $20,000 permile. will be obliged to gentle men who feel an interest in this bill, either for or against it, if they will give their attention to these ii ures. Figures, as gentlemen know, will not is, unless they be put down wrongly; and it is the business of members to see whether I put them down wrong or not. On the next 620 miles of this road the bill proposes to guaranty stock to the amount of $25,000 permile, making the guarantee upon the stock $20,000 permi e and $25,000 permile for the 1st 1,000 miles of the road, the average being $22, 500 or mile. The interest upon that stock at 6%, the rate 5 ecified in the bill, which interest is to be pai in currency, will be $1, 350 or mile, or $135, 1st 100 1 miles. Now, it will be remarked, and this is an item worth noticing and remembering, that the bill provides in express terms that when 20 hve miles of this road shall have been completed and put in running order, and not until then, the Government shall guaranty the amount of $20,000 permile. Another fact, and a very important one, connected with this item, is that immediately on the comlotion of the 20 5 miles for which stoc is guar untied, the company shall pay into the Treasury of the U.S. 25%. of the gross receipts. Now, I hope that members will not confound this with gross earnings or net earnings. One 4th of all the moneys received by this corporation on the 25 miles of road upon which the stock has been guarantied to a limited amount must be paid into the Treasury of the U.S. Now, I have taken some trouble to ascertain what will be the probable earnings; and I adopt as the basis O my estimates the earnings of western roads new roads in a new country. I have now in my mind one road on the west bank of the Mississippi 80 miles long, with earnings of about 600,000 dollars peryear. Taking that as the basis of my calculation, I calculate that 100 miles of the Northern Pacific railroad would give $750,000 a year. B this cal culation, one 4th of the earnings nring the year would be $187, 500. This amount the Government of the U.S. would receive each year for the guarantee of the stock of the company upon the 1st 100 miles. Now, gentlemen will remember that the bill provides that the proceeds of all the lands on the south side of this road are to be paid into the Treasury of the U.S. This, at $2 50 an acre, will give you $24,000 to be added to the $187, 500, which is one 4th of the gross earnings of the road and I ought to have stated, in connection with the $187, 500, that it is $52, 500 more than the amount guarantied by the Government. New, if these figures are correct, and the calculations approximate anywhere near the truth, at the end of the year we would have $76, 500 more money from the proceeds of the sales of the land and the quarter of the gross receipts of the road, than has been gnarantied by the Government. Now, gentleman may answer that by saying that the land will not be sold, or if sold will not sell for that amount of money. Well, I will give them the benefit of that objection, and admit, for the sake of arment., that not an acre of land shall be so (1, and that the earnings of the road shall only be such as other roads have earned in new countries and then you will still have $52, 500 at the end of the year on this calculation, more than has been guarantied by the Government. Now, I am at a loss to know how this argument is to be met. It may do to say in broad terms that $00,000,000 or $50,000,000 are to be taken out of the Treasury of the U.S. for the benefit of a great corporation. It is one thing to make a declaration it is another and a very different thing to back up that declaration by the facts and the figures. But Ia peal to the living facts for the basis of my caIhulations and for the conclusions at which I have arrived in this argument. If this road will earn what other roads in the new countries have earned heretofore, then at the end of the construction of the 1st 100 miles of this road the Government will have received $52, 500 more than they have guarantied to the coman. p Afr. TROWBRIDGE. I would like to ask the Gentfrom Iowa [Mr. PRICE] a question. I desire to inquire whether this 25%. of the gross earnings of the road is to be paid at any time previous to the comletion of the entire roa. I understand the anguage of the act requires the entire completion of the road before any of the proceeds are to be returned to the Government. O for the l