a body of men for service in
the field and the indirect result of this upon the cost of material; but
I can not believe that it is the purpose of Congress to reopen such
contracts at this late day and to pay to the contractors the cost of the
work or material which they stipulated to do or deliver at fixed prices.
In the matter of another vessel constructed by this same claimant and
in the case of one other similar claim I approved bills at the last
session, but they carefully limited any finding by the Court of Claims
to such losses as necessarily resulted from the interference by the
Government with the progress of the work, thus creating delays and
enhanced cost.

In those cases the Government only undertook to make good losses
resulting directly and unavoidably from its own acts. If the principle
which seems to me to be embodied in the bill under consideration is
adopted, I do not see how the Congress can refuse in all cases of all
sorts of contracts to make good the losses resulting from appreciation
in the cost of labor and material. The expenditure that such a policy
would entail is incalculable, and the policy itself is, in my judgment,
indefensible. The bill at the last session for the relief of this
claimant in the case of another vessel constructed by him was, as I have
said, carefully put upon the lines I have indicated, and if this claim
could have been maintained upon, those lines I assume that the bill
would have been similar in its provisions.

BENJ. HARRISON.

PROCLAMATIONS.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas satisfactory proof has been presented to me that provision has
been made for adequate grounds and buildings for the uses of the World's
Columbian Exposition, and that a sum not less than $10,000,000, to be
used and expended for the purposes of said exposition, has been provided
in accordance with the conditions and requirements of section 10 of
an act entitled "An act to provide for celebrating the four hundredth
anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus by
holding an international exhibition of arts, industries, manufactures,
and the products of the soil, mine, and sea, in the city of Chicago,
in the State of Illinois," approved April 25, 1890:

Now, therefore, I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States, by
virtue of the authority vested in me by said act, do hereby declare and
proclaim that such internatio