The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1858-05-11

TO WHOM JUSTICE Is DUE.-Elsewhere will be
found the report of the House Committee ap-
pointed to investigate the sale of the Fort SHELL
ing Reservation. Although the facts Of the
case may be said to lie in nutshell, il will be
seen from the space which they are made to &C.
cupy that they have been swelled into proper
tons to which they have no claim. We have
all along endeavored to keep this case stripped
of the mystifcations and exaggerstions with
which for party purposes it has been sought to
invest it. The committee have arrived at pre-
cisely the same conclusions as our own but they
have arrived at them in a somewhat different
manner. We helped the public to the truth
free Of charge; the committee have rehashed
it to them at a cost which, at the lowest calcu-
lation will amount to about half the price
stipulated to be paid for the lands comprised in
this reservation.
So much for the perversions and falsi6cations
of party journals having no interest but
that of villifying and damaging their OPP
ponents. Here was negotiation simple
enough in itself, and involving no very difficult
calculations distorted into gross fraud upon
the government 1t required but the slightest in
vestgation to demonstrate its true character; but
yet this inquiry has been made to cost the coun-
try a sum utterly dsproportionate to the value
of the interests at stake. 1t will of course add
another to the numerous items of idle and I'M
profitable expenditure in which the revenues of
the country are annually squandered. On
pcrusing the evidence laid before the committee
one is astonished at the boldness with which the
conditions of this bargain are denounced The
number Of acres within the reservation bounda-
ries arc stated to he between seven and eight
thousand, including land, water and marsh. OF
this amount there are, according to Major East
man, about thousand acres of irreclaimable
marsh, leaving of fair land between six aud
seven thousand acres, for which the government
is to receive between Sl2 and Sit an acre. Will
any land agent or farmer take upon himself to
say that this, considering the situation, is not
what most experienced men would consider a
fancy price.
But another question arises out of this con-
tract, which, after all the fuss that has has been
made about the matter, the purchasers Of the
land may feel inclined to test. By statutory
provision the maximum price which the govern
ment is allowed to fix upon the public lands is
only dollar and quarter an acre. BY what
right then, has it extorted from the purchasers
of the Fort Smelling reservation value so
usuriously exceeding that attached to it by
law
After the manner in which Messrs. Schell,
Mather and Steele have been treated we should
not be surprised to see those gentlemen turning
round upon the government and disputing the
conditions Of their bargain. The instalment
which they have already paid being sufficient to
cover the legal maximum price Of the rescrva-
ton, they may take it into their heads TO refuse
10 pay the other two instruments, on the ground
that the government has no right TO alter the
regulations made by Congress for the sale of
the public lands. 1t is not improbable that a
court of law would sustain them in this opinion;
and thus, owing to the malicious fuss that has
been made about q perfectly simple transac-
ton, the country may be deprived Of the ad-
vantages Of bargain which all impartial per-
sons must pronounce to have been an equitable
one.