Mr. JOHNSON. My friend now proposes to remit it to the Court of Claims. The result of that might be, and would be, if the claim be a just one, that instead of having to pay $25,000 we should have to pay $77,000, provided the Court of Claims thought the claim was a just one. But I wonder that the honorable member did not see that the argument against interfering with the claim now founded upon the fact that it had been passed upon by a tribunal constituted by Congress for the very purpose of acting finally is equally powerful against the suggestion to refer it to the Court of Claims; but there is nothing, as I think, with due deference to the member, in his sug estion..We are just as competent as the Jourt of Claims to pass upon a legal question, that legal question simply being the construction of a resolution which we have antecedently passed. Whether that resolution does or does not entitle these claimants to this fund depends upon the meaning of that resolution. That meaning is in no manner to be affected by any fact about which there is any dispute. It has not been denied, and is not now denied, that it was the duty of the Territory in the 1st instance, and of the State in the 2nd, to contribute out of the fund in question toward the construction of the canal. That they declined to do. It was not denied then, and cannot be denied now, that it was the duty of the company to construct the canal, and it being their duty to construct it it was of course a part of their duty to get the means with which to construct it. The means supplied by congress were the proceeds of these lands. Those means were placed in the hands, 1st of the Territory, and then of the State, and each of them in their order was directed to pay over as much as might be necessary to the canal company to enable the company to complete the canal. That they refused to do. Now, as between individuals, I should suppose there would be no doubt that this ooi". the law when they came to adjust the transaction as between themselves: A has placed in his hands by his principal a sum of money to be held in trust for by to enable by to transact a certain business; A keeps the money; by being obliged to do the business for which the trustis created, uses his own money, or he goes into the mar: ket and borrows, and in either case he is, as between himself and A, entitled to be paid interest; if he uses his own money, because he allows the use of that money which is interest and compensated for only in the way of interest; if he borrows, he is to be paid the interest because he has been compelled himself to pay the amount of interest; and I suppose no judi. cial or other tribunal of any description would hesitate to say that when the account came to be settled between A and by it would be right to charge as against A the interest which by had been compelled to pay because of A's default, and that it o be the right of the principal from whom the fund came, by whom it was placed in the hands of A for the specific purpose, to call on this trustee of his to per. form his trust, to pay over the money, if it was in his hands, if he had not paid anything, or to indemnify the cestui que trust if the cestuique trust had sustained loss because of A's default. That is just this case, exactly this case, There was conveyed to the State of Wiscon. sin a large number of acres of public land out of which Wisconsin was allowed a 5%. fund. Afterward, at her own instance, it was agreed that that should be disposed of either for the use of schools or for the con.struction of internal improvements. The lands were sold and the money came, according to the trust, into the possession of the Treasury, and there it was in 1864. The U.S. refused to pay over the whole amount because as she said she had a right to charge as against Wisconsin certain disbursements which Wis. consin herself should have met when the necessity for making them occurred. We there: fore directed, with the consent of Wisconsin, that the interior Dept should settle the account, and provided that it should charge the State with the whole amount of the sales of these lands and credit the State with what. ever sum she might be entitled to in the way of credit as against that fund; but that was not all. There was as against the fund another claim which, in the judgment of Congress, it was but just should be taken into consideration in making the adjustment as between the State and the U.S. That other claim was the amount the canal company had been com: pelled to expend, in consequence of o; forced to borrow money, in the payment o interest upon the loans; and we directed there: fore, not that any extra compensation paid to officers of the company, which the honorable membermentioned just now and got from the claim as it stood before the Land Office, but that the amount of interest which the company had been compelled to pay should be 1st paid out of the fund in the hands of the Treasury before anything was paid to the State of Wis: consin. It seems to me that we are just as competent to decide the question which the resolution pre: sents as any o: tribunal, and that it is clearly just and right that the amount of this claim should be allowed as it is allowed by the resolution we have already passed.