Mr. KELLEY. Mr. Speaker, I have not heretofore been inclined to take partin the dis cussion of financial measures reported to and considered by the House; not because I have not had decided views upon those measures, but. because I have found but little to which to object in the propositions made, and saw what the exigencies of the country were while war was flagrant. We are now, however, entering upon a new financial era. Wchave tested the power of our country to sustain an expansion of t lecurrency; we are, if the theories of the gentlemen who sustain this bill prevail. now entering upon a more dangerous trial, that of contraction. have list ene with great pleasure to the remarks made by the distinguished members of the ComWays&Means [Mr. Momma and Mr. Hoorsn] this morning. But I make one general exception to them. They give us no proppositions that are not drawn from the past, and their suggestions are, therefore, quite too contracted for our existing condition and the emer gencies of the present time. We must, Mr. Speaker, look at the financial questions of the day in the broad view in which we and foreign nations have learned to contemplate the resources and the power ofourcountry. Gentlemen may say that it will not do to leave the ruts of routine if we wish to sustain credit. Sir, it has done when it was necessary for us to maintain war, and to create and sustain the credit by which we were able to maintain that war, the largest in its dimensions that history yet records. Financiers at home and abroad will now believe many of our statements that would have been considered most extravagant a few years ago. A friend O mine, a brilliant conversational ist, a few evenings ago, while chatting with a foreign gentleman, said to him, “ Sir, you know nothing of our possibilities and never believe them until we demonstrate them. Had we told you 5 years ago that there was an obscure tanner in one of the interior towns of n.western State, who within 4 years would command, under his immediate personal supervision, more guns than Bonaparte ever saw, you would not have believed it and yet the 4 veers had not passed away before it was so. I never saw so many heavy guns as GenlGrant put into position in his campaigns and having seen, as you say you did, our grand reviews, on the return of our armies, you will admit that we might have sent, from the foot of Pennsyl vania avenue, cavalry, artillery, and infantry sutiicient to have met and conquered the combined forces of Wellington and Bonaparte at Waterloo, could they have been resuscitated and provided with the arms and munitions they handled on that field, and scarcely have interru ted the parade.” n entering upon this new era, we should do it not only with reference to our present financial condition, but with reference to our exanding trade and resources, and the possibil ities of the development of our resources, and the increase of our population. Return to speeie payments is most desirable. The extinguishment of our national debt is no less de sirable. Nobody wishes the speedy return of the one and the extinguishment of the other more than I do. But caution is speed when danger is in the way and let us pause before we act upon a bill so pregnant with possible consequences as this. What does this bill propose to do? It empowers the SecyTremury to with raw the only non-interest paying debt we owe, by making an interest bearing loan with which to redeem it and so involve us in the additional annual expenditure of $27,000,000 in interest. I agree that it is said he may not exercise that power; but it proposes to invest him with the power, and he or some less worthy successor may exercise it and if that were all, it would be atrivial matter. But in the exercise of that power rests the solvency or the bankruptcy of the business men and cor porations of this country. Mr. Speaker, you are not presiding over a meeting of the stockholders or the board of directors of a 3rd class railroad company which has fallen into embarrassment. This is the Congress of the U.S and yet this bill proposes that after having sustained Our war withoutany such degradation, we shall ask foreigners to loan us the money at 5%. to redeem a non-interest bearing loan; and among its inducements proposes that we shall make the bonds payable in France. Ger many, England, or elsewhere, in franes, florins, livres, poUDLIS,shillings, and pence—a proposition that would call a blush to the cheeks of the directors of an embarrassed railroad company whose work had been begun prematurely, and where there were neither people nor business to sustain it or give it credit. I do hope that clause, at least, will be stricken from the bill, as is proposed by my distinguished colleague, [Mr. Srsvsxsd], The able Gentfrom Massachusetts [Mr. HOOPER] said, in the course of his remarks, that there is only one way in which to approach a return to specie payments, and that is by contracting the currency. That is a mistake, but it brings me to consider the vastly renter and more dangerous powers containe in the authority proposed to be given to the SecyTreasury to redeem the greenback and fractional currency, our only noninterest bearing loans. The Gentfrom Massachusetts is, Irepeat, mistaken; there is another way. His way leads to bankruptcy; the other way leads to wealth and power. What is the condition of the banks today? There is not one of them that does not hold Government bonds beyond the total amount of its capital; and some of them own bonds to twice the amount of their capital. The vice of our system is, that we permit them to dis count ad hbitmn on their eposits. This dangerous power should be controlled gradually. but surely. The result is that prosperity always leads to undue expansion, while speculation and sudden contraction involve wide spread ruin. The necessities of the Government compelled the expansion of the currenc, and deposits have increased, and all the banks have invested in national bonds; and if the SecyTreasury call in $50,000,000 or $10,000,000 lof greenbacks, he will so contract e currency that every bank in the Union will begin,under compulsion to sell the Government securities in which it has invested its deposits. There is not a bank in the country that can bear a large contraction of the currency without either refusing to pay the checks of its deposit ors or sacrificing the loan of the country and depreciating it in the markets of the world. We must avoid anic, as an advanced guard would a masked battery of heavy guns. Gentlemen have the monthly and quarterly returns of the banks before them; I have them not at hand, and am not prepared with the pre cise figures as gentlemen are who knew that this bill was coming up today. But I challenge an examination of those returns. Look at the amount of their deposits, discounts, and the loans they hold; look whether every bank has not the amount of its Whole capital invested in the national loans, and then see what will be the practical eflect of producing a contraction which will make every depositor want his money. The bank has no other fund from which to supply currency than legal tender otes and national securities. No, sir; contraction is not the way to a resumption of specie nyments. It is the wa, after a brief struggle,by a doublenick marc, to bankruptcy. lhc deposits hel by national banks exceed the volume of their own notes and legal tenders combined. Let a contraction be in and depositors check heavily upon their bafances and it will affect every bank, and the next set of the SecyTreasur will be to notify the banks that, owing to a epre ciation in the market value of Government securities, they must increase their deposits to secure the redemption of their notes. I warn gentlemen to withhold from any man the power, at this time, when we are just coming out of such a war, to contract our currency or even to threaten its contraction. There is another and better method of res umption. We mine more gold and silver than another nation on earth and under the good in uence s of the Committeee on Mines and Mining of this House, of the construction of the Pacific railroad, and the return of peace, we will mine gold and silver enough in one year to pay our debt. But what is the use of mining it? It all goes to foreign lands. We raise grain; but it rots in our fields, or we consume it for fuel. We raise cotton; but we end it to Europe to be manufactured; and we send the manufacturers as much grain as they need to feed their workmen, and then we send them our gold with which to pay them for making our iron and spinning and weaving our cotton and wool. Let us modify that. The people of the Northwest are the rent importers of grain into this country. hile their wheat is rotting in their fields, and their corn blazing in their stoves and heaters, they are importing grain. Yes, sir; in condensed into railroad iron, condensed into cloth, condensed into every article they wear and use, and which they import, but might manufacture. I say that the question of specie payment connects itself with the question I am now touch ng upon—the fostering of the skill and industry of the country. The Gentfrom Massachusetts, HoorEa,] toward the close of his ingenious argument suggested that there was no incompatibility between a return to specie payments and the maintenance in circulation O our nonredeemable national currency. What, sir, was his argument upon that point? It was this: that we require a larger amount of circulatin medium now than we did before the war, an hence there would be found use for the ordinary amount of gold and silver and for the $452000,000 of national currency, greenback and fractional. In that argument, sir, he conceded the principle for which I am contending. I would not permit an expansion of the currency. I will not consent to an increase of our debt, but I would not peril the business of the country to hasten a return to specie payments or to extinguish our debt. Mr. Speaker, Wefought this war for posterity, and I am willing posterity, as the price of the blessings we transmit, shall pay the pecuniary; debt we have contracted. “ Posterity, as Boyle Roche said, “has never done anythinv for us," and 1 am willing it nau. y the (febt with which we have mortgaged 81c magnificent estate we are to leave 1. I am not willing to tax the widows and or phans of our soldiers to hasten the payment of our debt. 1/2 Of our country is devastated by war, its system of labor demoralized, and it. as its widows and orphans; and I am not willinghto tax them and their wasted estates in order that we may hasten to pay this debt. Let us so legislate that there shall be no expansion of the currency. Let us so legis1 late that there shall be no increase of the debt.I and let us so legislate as to relieve our labor. of taxation to the amount of the difference between our income and our expenditures, as I stated by the Gentfrom Massachusetts. I He says our income from various sources this year will be $500,000,000, and that our expenses will be a little over $200,000,000. Let us, then, relieve our poor mantua makers from the tax We collect from them for the privilege of stitch, stitch. stitching by day and night to support themselves and little Ones. et us relieve all those branches of industry which are now impaired or destroyed by our internal taxation. Promote the develoment of our resources and stimulate ourin ustr by repealing taxes to the amount of 150 or 200 million dollars per annum. Let us promote the recuperation of the South and give employment to the discharged soldier of the North, and in 5 years the principle laid down by the Gentfrom ltfitssac usetts, [Mr. Hoorlsaj that the extensive development of the resources of the country and the increase of population creates uses for money will be demonstrated, and we will have a population which will carry the amount of currencywhich now indicates undue expansion. What is more, sir if the men of the North west will weave and spin their own wool and make their own iron and other products which. they now import, and eat their own wheat, We shall find we will kee our old in the country instead of sending it to ngland to buy wheat from the banks of the Baltic and the Nile for the use of the grain growers of Iowa and Minnesota and Kansas and at the end of 5 years you will find the specie owning citizens of the country will have bought from the banks their bonds, and the bullion owning citizens of the country will have deposited in the banks specie; at any rate, at the end of ten years the process of fosteringl our industry, de veloping our resources, an retaining in the country some of our vast mineral wealth, will bring us to the resumption of specie payments, naturally, and without disturbing any iiranch of, business. Then, sir, what will be the case? Why, ten years hence the employment ofAmer ican labor, steadily and at liberal wages, will, by inviting emi ration, have doubled our population, and will not only have quadrupled, but twice quadrupled our material resources. You cannot calculate the ratio of the increase of our taxable wealth. For, sir, what was known uu. til within a few years as the great desert which I was forever to divide the Atlantic and Pacific States is found to be one vast mass of gold and 0! silver and precious stones. So that into the desert so marked men are swarming in busy hives and are drawing from the earth treasures i“n comparison with which the storied wealth of Drums and oflnd” are not to be named. At the end of ten years our population may be doubled and our taxable property will have doubly quadrupled, and your share of our debt, Mr. Speaker, will be lessened just in proportion as we shall have increased the number of consuming and taxable citizens, and that of your estate will be diminished by the vast aggregate of wealth developed by enterprise or accumu lated by industry. For myself, sir, I hope the power to contract the currency by redeeming our non-interest bearing debt, the legal tenders, will not be granted. I do not lack confidence in the qualities of the SecyTreasury as a banker. I believe him to be one of the ablest in the countr; but I believe that bankers wisdom is a de usion in these days. What we want is, the sagacity, grasp, and cour age of statesmanshi, and his propositions, as disclosed in this bil do not, think, display these qualities and I pray and implore the House to refuse to make the admission to the bankers of Frankfort on the Main, of Paris, and of Lombard street, that with the crushing of the rebellion and the murder of Abraham Lincoln the pride and manhood of the Republic died out. For 4 years—I close as I began—we sustained a war and maintained the credit to sustain it, and I im lore gentlemen not to say to the bankers of urope that if they will come to our relief we will agree by the terms of the bond to ay them in their own franes and florins and shillings and pence, but let them expect to see the coin of America, with its eagle on it at least, when their bonds shall be ultimately redeemed. In pursuance of the previous order of the House, the further consideration of the bill was postponed till Wednesday next, after the morning hour. MILITARY and NAVAL ASYLUM.