Mr. MCDOUGALL. It is so long since I learned my 1st mathematics that I have almost forgotten what is positive, and I am not a great master of figures. What the gentleman says may be very true; he understands the computation of numbers and must have been a great student of all forms of mechan ics from his youth upward. He knows howeverything can be produced that can be produced by art and science. Very well; I do not accept his judgment as compelling mine, for, thinking severely, I happen to think that my mathematics is even superior to his own. This may be called a boast, and it may be a boast, but still it is the simple truth. Now, sir, as I am on the floor, I wish to say a few words before we reach the final vote. I shall vote for this measure when it is matured by the chairman of the ComFinance, for whom I have great respect, as he knows, although the principles involved in it are not such as to meet with my full concurrence. I shall have to go back many years to explain the reason why. thus vote. There was an occasion when a man whom I remember as one of the most distinguished men of our republic, having argued many times against a certain course of policy, yet voted for it because it was demanded by the interests of the Re. public. I speak of Silas Wright. I shall support this bill, although I object, not to the measure as it stands, but to its underlying considerations. The trouble is not the tariff; the trouble is our financial condition, and the way it has been organized. We have to raise large amounts of money. We have to impose upon the people taxation sufficient to raise revenue enough to support the Government. It is caused much by the way our finances have been organized, and in this remark I have no reference to the ComFinance, but to the policy organized at the opening of the war to the organization of the national banks, to the system that undertook to make that a dollar which is not a dollar. The consequence is, that when a laborer asks for his daily wages, instead of 2 dollars a day, which was formerly sufficient, he asks 5 dollars, and he cannot get it because of the confusion of the currency. We have today in this country about 5 times as much currency as is justified by a and sound business, and therefore we have to pay high taxes. The taxes must be aid; the Government must be supported; but the error is in the basis of our system. We have at the center of the Government a power gravitating throughout the whole republic. I suppose that our 500 banks, with a license from this capital to transact business, are all inviting the honest trader to borrow $50, $500, $5,000, it being profitable to the institution with which he deals. That requires a condition of affairs that disables us from having steady exchange abroad and transacting with advantage our business with foreign nations. That is the reason why we must have this tariff to which I submit only as a political necessity. It is wrong, in my judgment, not as Presently Presented, but wrong because wise policy did not lie at the foundation of the organization of the system. I think that in its organization the great interests of the Republic were not highly regarded, and that great ambitions had much to do with it, as great ambitions had when Caesar went proconsul into Spain. What for him? To redeem his own personal fortunes, and then come back ro consul to be received through the gates of. triumphant. I do not say that this is the truth; but I do fear that it is the truth, and that fear sometimes makes me tremble for a republic instituted by the wise men of our age which they designed to last through many cen turies, but which now; not yet having passed a century, is threatened with utter dissolution. The underlying evil I think is in the financial policy of the Government; but our necessities must be met. I do not undertake to speak as a very thor oughly informed man; but as well as I have been able to think, and now Presently, as well as I am able to speak, I say this evil must be corrected in our financial system generally throughout the Republic to enable us to maintain our institutions with half our Present expenses, and then we shall not be compelled to . 10,000 men regularly. The 10,000 men of whom Ispeak are the agents, accessories, and employees of the institutions that grow out of the banking system.started here. I am somewhat responsible for what I call this iniquity, and I have long desired the time when I might state, and make public record of the fact, that I think I did a great wrong when I went for the bill which 1st established this currency. I thought it a public necessity at that moment, and I voted for the 1st bill that made paper money a legal tender. It was then said by the chairman of the ComFinance and by the SecyTreasury that $100,000,000 would be sufficient. I submitted to that as a then Present necessity. It has now grown into Gorgon eared Briareus hands, and Argus eyes, stretching around this our Republic and injurious to its health. When General Jackson feared a combination of $30,000,000 of capital, he had, by his brave constitution and his great will, the power to check an institution that threatened to demoralize our system at that time; but there was comparatively little danger then to what there is now, when $700,000,000 are afloat and being used in the same manner and for the same purpose. I say, these things, not as arguments against the bill, for I have already indicated that I shall vote for it, but I say them to give full exPression to what I believe to be the truth, and what I should like to exPress as the truth. I desire not only those who are now Present here, but others to hear what I think to be the truth.