Mr. THAYER. Mr. Speaker, an analogy has been attempted to be drawn between the compensation of an officer in the Army and that of an officer in the Navy. Now, I 0 not think it requires much discrimination to perceive that there is a total failure in the attempted analogy. An officer of the Navy, if he is at sea, of course lives on board of his ship. He has no quarters to pay for. If he is on shore, on leave, he can select the place of his residence. In point of fact, we now that all our Navy officers do that. They locate their homes wherever they please; if poor, with a view to economy as well as comfort; if rich, they may choose their homes in more expensive localities; and while the are on leave they can go to those homes an occupy them. It is a matter which is entirely under their own control and at their own option. They may select whatever part of the country they please. When they are at sea their quar ters are of course furnished. They live without rent. They receive their supplies from the purser, or rather from the paymaster of the ship, as he is now called. So that, so far as any argument is to be deduced from an analogy between the situation of the 2 kinds of officers, it strikes me there is a total failure in it. There is no analogy between the circumstances of the officers in the 2 branches of the service. How can you fix any rigid system of pay which will do equal justice to all the officers of the Army whatever their situation or command may be? That is a question which has been attempted to be solved by very many gentlemen before the Gentfrom Ohio [Mr. Scusxex] attempted it, and no man has ever yet succeede in doing it. You cannot by the force ofingeuuity make any scale of pay which will do equal justice between the officers of the Army, wherever they may be situated and what over their circumstances in the service may be. It is an impossibility, simply and purely. That is the reason why, from the foundation of the Government, the system which now prevails has existed. It is simple, it is just. A man who is in one place gets no more than the man who is in another place. It adjusts all the inequalities of living everywhere. Whether the officer is in one extremity of the country or another the Government does him equal justice by the system which now obtains. It bu vs for him his subsistence, his forage, his fuel), his quarters, and gives them to him at what they cost the Government, and if he does not choose to use the subsistence, forage, fuel, &c., it allows him as an equivalent the price which the government has had to pay at the point where the officer is stationed. Now, one would think that a system so plain, so apparently just and equal as that, ought not to be disturbed, especia 1 when the manifest and obvious result of a disturbance such as is here contemplated would be to introduce the grossest inequality. You would drive many officers, in my judgment, from the service of the U.S. if you put them upon sala ries such as are contemplated h this bill, and place them at certain posts which might be designated. Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to take up further the time of the House in the consideration of this bill. It is a subject which, though one of great consequence, is really embraced within a very narrow compass. It is one for which it seems to me common sense furnishes the safest solution, and 0 miljustice the true rule. Much has been sai' by my friendfrom Ohio Mr. Scussex] in regard to the bureaus of the Var Dept in this city. For what purpose, or what legitimate connection the bureaus iave with this bill, I cannot conceive. I may say, however, that during the consideration of a former bill in the House it was attempted to arouse some prejudices by an appeal against the bureaus of the War Dept in this city and those who have the fortune or the misfortune, whichever you may choose to call it, of belonging to them. I would like to know what that has to do with this subject. If any man votes for this bill upon the idea that he is goin to inflict an injury upon the bureaus of the War Dept, I tel him he will commit a very grave mistake. I tell him that the injury he will inflict will be upon the officers in the distant, destitute posts oft iis country where all the necessaries of life are scarce and high. Why, sir, even a bureau officer here may creep into some dirty hole and live in rags, perhaps, upon the pay proposed in the gentleman’s bill without subsistence quarters, fuel, fora e, or anything. But there are places where o cers, and many of them, who have shed their blood in defense of your cause, in the far and remote West where subsistence and all these things are so high, cannot live upon the salary which you propose to give them while you strip them of the support which you have hitherto given them by furnishing these things in kind. Sir, this legislation is notin its effect, whether the intention be so or not, against the bureaus here. It is vastly more against the officers sit uated in the manner to which I have referred than it is against the gentlemen whose positions have been made the subject of such frequent remark by the Gentfrom Ohio, [Mr. SCHENCK.]