Mr. DARLING. Mr. Chairman, I do not propose to occupy the time of the House with any extended remarks upon this bill. It is to be regretted that the select committee appointed by this House, of which I have the honor to be chairman, have not been able to prepare their report and submit it to the House in advance of the Presentation of this bill. That report would have been heretofore presented but for the fact that the labors of the committee are just concluded; and the vast amount of testimony which they have taken and which is just written up requires some days more for examination and analysis and the preparation of a report. I am glad to see, however, that the ComWays&Means, although there has been no consultation between that committee and the one of which I am chairman, has substantially anticipated in some measure the views which I intended to submit to the House. There is, however, one portion of this bill to which I take exception, although I do not know that at this late period of the session there is time to prepare a bill with sufficient care to embrace in all its details what would be required to give efficiency and force to the provisions of the law. I regard the Present system of collecting the tax upon distilled spirits as a perfect failure; and I regret to see that by this bill the ComWays&Means propose to retain substantially the provision of the Present law in reference to the appointment of local inspectors for each distillery, these inspectors being paid by the distillers. If the object of the committee had been to facilitate frauds and defeat the collection by the Government of its due amount of revenue, they could not more successfully or skillfully have devised a provision for accomplishing that object. Now, sir, I contend that it is the duty of the Government in the assessment of internalrevenue to impose the highest amount of tax upon such articles as are not necessary for the health, comfort, or existence of the people. If such tax is imposed, and the necessity for it is apparent, the collection of it becomes a neces. sity, and the creation of law to enforce its collection also becomes a necessity. And if such tax is imposed and is collected the people are released at once from tax upon all articles that do affect their health, comfort, and well being. I hold it is the duty of the Government to impose upon such articles as distilled spirits and tobacco the highest amount of tax, a tax in the aggregate that will secure to the government a revenue that will release all other articles from any tax whatever. Until all legislative ability is exhausted, until officers can no longer be found whose fidelity in the discharge of their duty can be relied upon, until every means has been tried, until crime can no longer be discovered and its perpetra tors punished, I shall vote for the imposition of that tax. The honorable chairman of the committee proposes to increase the license of distillers only $500., I hope this House will raise it to $1,000, and I hope the collectors of districts will not be allowed to give a permit for distillation that shall extend for more than 3 months. If at the end of 3 months the distiller shall not have demeaned himself properly he shall not have his license renewed, and shall lose the $1,000 paid; and if he has demeaned himself properly he shall have a renewal for 3 months. It will be seen at once the appointment of these local inspectors, paid by a distiller, become at once his paid agents and confidential intimate friends. He is his witness, and when he is detected in illicit distillation by outside parties and brought into the Federal courts he brings up this very man appointed by the government as his witness to defend and protect him. He is his witness, and he cannot be anything but his witness unless he criminates himself, for the moment he complains of any irregularity in that distillery in which he is placed that distillery stops and his pay ceases. The strongest temptation to fraud is held out by the Government when they appoint a man to office under such circumstances. Gentlemen upon this floor will remember when this subject was before the House at the last session I endeavored faithfully to strike out this provision, in which I was sustained by the honorable Gentfrom Kentucky. All I said then, all I predicted then, has come to pass. The law appointing these officers stinks in the nostrils of the people. No man at all familiar with the daily routine and practice of these distilleries in our large cities and towns but knows this is an open door for fraud. This man stands there protecting the distiller in his illicit manufacture. It is not mandatory on the distiller now to pay a tax, but optional. Under the Present system he pays what he thinks will." the inspector quiet. In one district in Brooklyn in 3 months subsequent to September 33 licensed distilleries, running with a capacity of 10,000 gallons per day, on which the tax would be $20,000 per day, but $3,000 was paid into the Treasury for the whole 3 months. And since this law has been in effect, 3 months subsequent to the 1st of September in ten districts in NewYork, where this system of local inspection is carried out in its most pernicious practice, the revenue from distilled spirits has fallen off half a million dollars in 3 months. How can you trace a barrel of spirits without a brand? The in spector is aware there is no testimony to crim inate him. I contend this bill should be amended so that those officers should be paid by the Government, and they should not be permitted to remain for any length of time in anyone distillery. I am willing to abrogate this whole system. I reach would it in the intermediate result between fer mentation and charging the still. I think there can be a system devised, I think science will yet devise a plan, by which we can tax, the specific gravity of all the fluid that passes into the still. Why, sir, we collected tax last year on 14 million gallons only. In the year 1810this country distilled over 23 million. In 1860 the amount of distilled spirits was 90 million. Now, sir, I contend that the consumption today is as large as it was in 1860, if not larger. The demoralization growing out of the war, the taste that has been engendered for the use of ardent spirits, has tended to increase the consumption. At all events, I maintain that the Government does not get more than one 8th of the tax that it would get if the whole of the spirits were reached and the tax imposed. The reason why the Government does not get it is because of this pernicious system of appointing local inspectors in the pay of the distillers, who are their agents and confidential friends and their witnesses interposed between charges against them and the Government to protect theimwhen they are arrested for illicit practices.