Mr. CONNESS. The objects as stated in the bill unquestionably are commendable as assumed by the honorable Senfrom Maine, and the names that arementioned in connection with this corporation are among the best in our country. But it is proposed to organize a corporation which may pass immediately from those persons to altogether a different control. The control of this company may pass from the hands of the persons named in the bill within a year after its organization; and so far as the declared purposes are concerned, the authority to be acquired under it may be converted, to the extentt at the scheme is capable of, or that the law permits. to very bad purposes. The whole theory of the legislation of the Congress of the U.S. as I understand it, and I think as we all understand it, now is to make the people of the U.S. owners of the soil on which they live, not tenants; and every scheme that contemplates a tenancy for any length of time is one t rat is odious and objectionable. Tenancy has made a civilWar in one part of the country already, and measures had to be resorted to finally to put an end to it which were of very extensive character; I mean in the State of NewYork. It was found to be an evil so great that it was necessary to overcome it, as during the recent war it was found necessary to exercise extraordinary powers, perhaps not warranted, at least in the opinion of some, under the Constitution. To organize such a system now does not seem to me to be in accordance with the spirit or theory upon which the Government goes at present. It may be said that thisis far fetched. I do not think so. In the U.S., by the benefi eent action of this Government, the means of acquiring land are now placed really within the hands of every human being who desires it and who is capable of using it. Those who are able to purchase land at $1 25 an acre can get an abundance of it. The mode of dissition is made easy and ready and simple by the government of the U.S. Those who are not. able to buy land may go and settle on the public land, and acquire it for nothing, without money and without price, by living upon it and cultivating it for 5 years. Certainly that means is easy enough. Now, if any corporation wish to promote settlement and ownership, let this bill be changed so that benevolentpersons and ablepersons shall act as pilots, if you please, as directors and advisers and instruments to take the poor and aid them in getting upon these lands, to aid them in their prelim inary work, to furnish them with the necessary capital; but let them not by any instrumentality whatever he placed as owners overthose people, and let no part of the people of the U.S. be placed in the position of tenants of any other portion of the people by any act of Congress. The bill appears to me to be obnoxious in these respects in addition to the fact that it creates (as Congress has the right to create) a coloration within the DistCol, but which may be coextensive in its operation with the extent of the U.S. ltis the equivalent, in other words, practically, of the erection by Congress of a corporation within every State in the Union for the manipulation and handlin of lands within each State.