Mr. ANTHONY. I desire to say a word in regard to this amendment. It has been cus tomary, ever since I have been connected with the public printing, to print 10,000 copies of the annual Report of the ComrPatents. It is undoubtedly a book of very great value, and if it is proper for the Government to print any documents of this kind for popular istribution, which is a question that may well be considered, this is one of the most valuable. It is the history of the inventive genius of the country for the year that has gone by. It not only disseminates among the people a knowledge of what has been invented, but it stimulates the publicingenuity in all directions. Under ordinary circumstances of the Treasury, the committee would not recommend any reduction of the number to be printed, but probably would recommend an increased number, corresponding with the increase of population and mechanical development; but in the present condition of the Treasury it is deemed advisable that the great at economy should be used, and it is the determination of the committee to reduce this branch of public expenditure to the loWestPoint that is consistent with the public interest. If this resolution and the amendment shall be adopted. I am instructed by the same committee to offer another resolution reducing the number of these documents for 1868 and 1864 in like preportion. Those have not been printed owing to the great pressure on the public Printing office. If the resolution shall pass as amended, and the other resolution which I shall oller shall pass. it will effect a reduction of 60%., or of 18,000 in the whole number of copies. Mr. President, in this connection wish to say a few words for the correction of some mistakes into which the country and the senate have fallen with regard to the expenditures for the public rioting. The documents which are distributed) executive Depts that contain the history of the government for the year. They are the reports which the trustees of the people render of their stewardship. They contain a large amount of statistical and historical information of very great value, such as all Governments have been accustomed to put into a permanent form. They must be printed. These great reports as they come to us in manuscript are of no use; they are not accessible; members of the 2 Houses of Congress must have them in type or they might as well not be presented to them. When they are once put in type it is comparatively little additional cost to strike 00 copies for the State archives and for public libraries; and theimportnucc of that is very evident, that these documents may be accessible for reference, and that the may be in various places for preservation an security against fire. Then there is another temptation, when this is done, which is liable to consider able abuse. to print large numbers of copies for popular distribution; and the impression seems to prevail throughout the country that this practice is now carried to a greater extent than it has been heretofore; and it is to cornot this error that I wish to call the attention of the Senate to the cost of public printing for the last year. I saw it stated the other day, in a paperof very large circulation, and of very high character, that “Pub. Doc." cost, last year, $2,000,000. The idea intended to be conveyed, and doubtless entertained by the editor, was that we distribute annually $2,000,000 worth of books amen the people; and my friendfrom Indiana [Mr. RNDRICKS] the other day stated that the public printing had in some way risen from $200,000 to $2,000,000, and he seemed to mil upon us for some explanation. This, coming from a Senator generally so accurate as my friendfrom Indiana is on all matters unless when he is talking on politics, is cal culated to produce some impression on the Senate. The cost of the public printing is undoubtedly a great deal larger than it was, and the reasons for it are too palpable to require more than enumeration. n the 1st place the country has increased. The same increase that the growth and progress of the country require in all other Depts is naturally to be expected to be reapired in the Dept of printing, and reer more perhaps with a progressin and enterprising people like ours, because printing may be regsed almost as a type of civilization, an the more p resaive a people are the more printing they will require. Then the war has enormously increased the amount of public printing. The printing that would answer for an army of ten or 20,000 men that were lying around in bar racks would he manifest] but a very small%age of that require for a million men engaged in active Operations all over the country, and very often in a large degree officered by inexperienced men who would naturally waste more blanks than an instructed officer would require for his use. A still greater cause of the increase in the l are mainly the reports of the I cost of printing is the increase of the cost of paper, of labor, and of all the materials entering into printing. Paperhas been 2 and a half prices; I suppose paperis now about double what it was before the war, and it has been 3 times more than it was before the war. The same is also true with all the mate rials for binding, although the Government has not suffered so much as might have been apprehended from this cause because the contracts have been made at very low rates by the Superintendent, and, as all his contracts have been, made with men reliable and men of high reputation, and they have fulfilled their contracts in the most honorable manner at considerable loss to themselves. The Senfrom Indiana spoke of a time when the printing was $200,000 a year. I do not know when that was. The average cost of the printing of the 33rd, 34th, and 35th Congresses, the 3 last Congresses under the contract system, was $374,000 a year. That was for the Senate and HoRep alone the printing, ppper, and bindiu. The whole printing now r the Senate an HoRep and for all the Executive Depts is not $2,000,000; in round numbers it is $1, 750,000 a little less than that. Now. sir, let us see how much of that is the printing of Congress. The 1st item is for the War Dept, $484,000. That is something more than a quarter of the whole.