Mr. HOWE. I am going to vote against this amendment and I want to say that that vote does not necessarily imply any want of confidence in the administrative ability or the personal integrity of the present SecyTreasury. lncver saw the SecyTreasury and I never saw the head 0 any other Dept that I would agree, or ever did agree, to put this sum of money in the hands of to be distributed arbitrarily. I have always opposed the provisions, and I think I shall always oppose every provision of the kind. If it be so that we have a SecyTreasury who cannot tell us what amount of service he wants and what kind of service he wants, and cannot inform us what such service as that brings in NewYork or Boston, in banks or customhouses or in other places where like services are employed, we had better abandon the idea of governing the country at all and having any Treasury Dept. I insist upon it that the SecyTreasury does know, or ought to know, just how many employees he wants of these different kinds and grades, and the Legislature ought to know it, and we ought to be willing, and for one I am willing, that the Government should pay just as much for services of this kind when employed by the Government as they can get elsewhere. I do not believe that private parties prosecuting private business ought to outbid the Government of the U.S. for a given kind of service, and I am not willing that it should be done. When we know what is wanted, I am willing to fix the pay high enough to command the best kind of service where the best kind of service is wanted; but I am not willing, as it seems to me, to undermine the whole theory upon which legislation is based, and to put a gross sum in the/hands of any man to be distributed according to his pleasure. I do not know what the SecyTreasury himself says or asks about this thing, but it seems to me that it cannot be a favor to him, but on the contrary. a great disfavor to him. I do not know what sum would induce me to undertake the (Rsburse ment of such an amount. If you were to make it 3 times this amount, I have no doubt it would all be disbursed and would all be demanded of the Secretary. Men would be forced upon him or their claims would be forced upon him for an increase of their sala ries that he could not resist, and the whole of it would 0.