From this it will be seen that England pays nearly four hundred thousand dollars a year and receives nothing, and yet our friends of the Appropriation Committee think we are far too extravagant. They can make a little fun at the expense of our ministers, by talking about their conversation in broken Chinese with the Celestials, and they seem to think that is enough to laugh out of Congress all our efforts to keep up our relations with that great nation of more than five hundred million people. Gentlemen, I beg of you, do not cripple and utterly ruin this young and growing commerce that shall bind Asia to the United States.

Our friends of the Appropriation Committee seem to have adopted the rule that, when they have any doubt about an appropriation, in the absence of any definite knowledge as to how it should be cut down, they will divide it by two. For example: the contingent expenses of our foreign and diplomatic service they have divided by two, making the amount $50,000, instead of $100,000 as heretofore. I hold in my hand a table, prepared at the State Department, which shows the total contingent expenses of our foreign missions and foreign intercourse service. since 1853. The table shows, among other things, the average contingent expenses of foreign missions and intercourse per year for the several administrations since July 1, 1853. The summaries are given :

From this it will be seen that, during the last twenty-four years, the average expenditure for the contingent expenses of foreign missions and foreign intercourse has been considerably more than $100,000. In no administration, except the first term of General Grant, have the appropriations been brought down to the average of $100,000 a year. Now, the average of the last forty years has not been as low as $100,000; yet the Committee on Appropriations, following their principle of dividing by two, have cut down this contingent item to $50,000. Sir, it exceeded that amount fifty years ago, and has never been lower than that since the time of Thomas Jefferson. Now,

upon what principle have the committee acted? Is it simple division, to save labor, or what is it? You may ask the Secretary of State to furnish you the exact details of contingent expenses for any year for the last half-century, and you will find that the sum will not be so small as you have put it in this bill.

I next call the attention of the Committee of the Whole to the clause found in lines 271 and 272 of the bill, "For the relief and protection of American seamen in foreign countries, $60,000." Now, section 4577 of the Revised Statutes provides that

"It shall be the duty of the consuls, vice-consuls, commercial agents, and vice-commercial agents, from time to time, to provide for the seamen of the United States who may be found destitute within their districts, respectively, sufficient subsistence, and passages to some port in the United States, in the most reasonable manner, at the expense of the United States, subject to such instructions as the Secretary of State shall give. The seamen shall, if able, be bound to do duty on board the vessels in which they may be transported, according to their several abilities."

The consul cannot neglect this duty without violating the law. He must send the American sailor home. Now, the experience of years shows that from $75,000 to $150,000 a year is used in this way, and that we cannot get along with less. I remember that, two years ago I think it was, we had to make an extra appropriation of a large amount, because of the wrecking of our whaling fleet by the ice in the Pacific. I have here a table furnished me by the State Department, showing how much has actually been expended for the relief of American seamen, with the amounts paid for transportation to the United States and loss by exchange, in each year since 1861, by which it is seen that in no year has the amount been so small as that proposed by this bill for this purpose. The range is from $64,640.72, in 1874, to $226,705.63, in 1863. The amount expended in 1872 for relief of seamen at Honolulu, in consequence of the disasters to shipping in the Pacific in that year, was $121,855.42. The total average for fourteen years, since 1861, is $125,000.

Now, if you appropriate for this purpose only $60,000, this will be the result. When the $60,000 shall have been exhausted, drafts will be sent in from all parts of the world from which American seamen are sent home; and of course they

will be dishonored, for there will be no money to pay them. There may be a hundred little drafts, amounting in all to thirty or forty thousand dollars, from twenty different countries, sent by our consuls, and they will be dishonored simply because of this unnecessary effort to show a cutting down of expenses. There will be no more of this fund used than is called for under the strict letter of the law. Let us appropriate enough to cover what we understand to be the fair expectation of expenditures for this purpose. If it is not all used, there will be no harm done. It is true the Democratic party will not have the credit of cutting down our expenditures by a few thousand dollars; but, you will have saved American seamen from distress, and also our government from shame and protest. Let us do that.

I have one other matter to refer to, and that is a very small one. It has been our custom for many years to appropriate a small fund with which to pay foreigners who, by acts of gallantry, save any of our citizens from shipwreck. Whenever some gallant English or French sailor has leaped into the sea and rescued an American seaman from death, our State Department has made him a small present, it may be a chronometer, a watch, a compass, or a medal, or fifty dollars in money, with a letter of recognition of his courage. During the last forty years about $5,000 a year has been used, and never has the amount gone above $7,500. Now, if there is anything in the world which we ought to keep untouched, it is that little appropriation of $5,000 for this worthy purpose, to let men all over the world know that, if they take care of an American citizen, or save his life, they will have the thanks of the United States as a memorial to carry with them. Now the committee come to that estimate, and, following their new rule, divide it by two, making it $2,500. Why should they higgle about a matter like this, which, though small in amount, is in its relations to the world and to our honor and our pride a great and important matter? I presume the provision of the bill on this point is an oversight; I do not think anybody would make such a reduction except as the result of oversight. Let it be corrected.

I have here a table, carefully prepared in the office of the Fifth Auditor, showing how much the great nations of the world- France, Russia, Great Britain, Spain, and the United States expend at the various consular ports where they all have consular offices. This table is very interesting, for it

shows at a glance how valuable the consular service is supposed to be by these great powers, and how we regard it. It is a little mortifying to find that in every case the United States is away down at the foot of the list, even right at our very doors, -in Cuba, in the islands of the Atlantic, and on the coasts. of South America. So far as we can practise economy while doing our work as well as they, let us practise it; but I trust that this bill will not finally be put in such a shape that before the nations of the world we shall be ashamed of the way we treat our foreign and consular service.

On the 10th of December, 1878, pending the Consular and Diplomatic Appropriation Bill for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1879, Mr. Garfield said, in Committee of the Whole:

MR. CHAIRMAN,-So far as I have studied the current of public thought and of political feeling in this country, no feeling has shown itself more strongly than the tendency of the public mind in the past few months. The man who attempts to get up a political excitement in this country on the old sectional issues will find himself without a party and without support. The man who wants to serve his country must put himself in the line of its leading thought, and that is the restoration of business, trade, commerce, industry, sound political economy, honest money, and honest payment of all obligations. And the man who can add anything in the direction of the accomplishment of any of these purposes is a public benefactor.

HENRY H. STARKWEATHER.

REMARKS MADE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
FEBRUARY 24, 1876.

MR. GARFIELD made the following remarks while these resolutions were pending in the House:

"Resolved, That this House has heard with deep regret the announcement of the death of Henry H. Starkweather, late a member of this House from the State of Connecticut.

"Resolved, That, as a testimony of respect to the memory of the deceased, the officers and members of the House will wear the usual badge of mourning for thirty days.

“Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be transmitted by the Clerk to the family of the deceased.

Resolved, That, as a further mark of respect, the House do now adjourn.

"Resolved, That the foregoing resolutions be forthwith transmitted to the Senate."

MR.

[R. SPEAKER, In some respects this hall is the coldest, the most isolated place in which the human heart can find a temporary residence. We are in the service of distant constituencies, each of us representing the wishes and aspirations of separate communities, people with whom we are far more closely connected than with each other. Few of us have been neighbors, or even acquaintances. We are here, not for each other, but for the public; and the duties of our temporary sojourn are such as necessarily to keep us isolated from each other. I have often been saddened by the thought that in no place where my life has been cast have I seen so much necessary isolation as here. True, our work brings us together every day; we see each other's faces; we compare opinions