d in these amendments as separate
and distinct measures, pass this bill which, to the extent it goes
and to the extent it is successful, will be beneficial to the
people."

The debate upon the bill and upon amendments to it continued until
the 3rd of February, when it passed the Senate by the decided vote
of 38 yeas, 18 nays.

The bill was referred to the committee of ways and means, but the
House, instead of passing a separate bill, accomplished the same
object by section 11 of the national bank act of July 12, 1882, by
which the Secretary of the Treasury was authorized to receive at
the treasury any bonds of the United States bearing three and a
half per cent. interest, and to issue in exchange therefor an equal
amount of registered bonds of the United States bearing interest
at the rate of three per cent. per annum.

Mr. Folger, Secretary of the Treasury, in his annual report of
December 4, 1882, stated that on July 1, 1882, the amount of three
and a half per cent. bonds outstanding was $449,324,000, and that
under the section referred to he had exchanged to the date of his
report $280,394,750 of three per cent. bonds for a like amount of
three and a half per cent. bonds, thus reducing the annual interest
charge by reason of these exchanges $1,401,973.75.

By his report of 1883, it was shown that the total amount of such
exchanges was $305,581,250, making an annual saving of interest,
effected by these exchanges, of $1,527,906.25. These bonds were
subsequently paid from time to time by surplus revenue.

The whole process of refunding was perhaps as favorable a financial
transaction as has ever been executed in any country in the world.

A revision of the tariff was greatly needed, but the only measure
adopted at that session was an act to provide for the appointment
of a commission to investigate the question of the tariff. I made
a speech on this bill in which I advocated the appointment of a
commission. I said:

"Mr. president, I have called attention to these defects in the
present tariff, nearly all of which have grown out of amendments
that have been ingrafted on the Morrill tariff, by the confusion
caused by the difference between _ad valorem_ and specific duties,
by the great fall in prices, by important changes in the mode of
manufacturing, by, you may say, the revolution in trade and prices
that has occurred in the last twenty years, during which these laws
have existed. Therefore, coming back