New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-05-16

CHANGES PROPOSED by THE SENATE COMM ZEE
ppIxr1Sc-1ssrANcEs OF ExTRAvAGANcE uNph A
THE EXISTING ARRANGEaENIs-A fAN-'
THE SALE OF PUBLIC DOCUMENTS
fay TELEGRAPH TO THE TRIBUNE
,,--..-,,o>, Nav15-The abolition of the Frank
B.. pr;,iloce last year. gives fair promise OF max
; possible the adoption Of reforms In pubic PRINT
inc nv which the Government may save much more
than the cost of the postage on public documents
and on the correspondence of public oihclns anu
members of Congress. Senator Anthony Hoin 'no
rommittee on Printing, submitted to-day lePoiU
NJ draft of a bill ITO provide for the sale OF extra
conies of public documents, and for the Distribution
of the regular official editions thereof" ms Dill
makes it the duty Of the Congressional PRINTER
when any public document Is ordered 10
be printed by Congress to Obtain from inc JOHN
Committee on Printing instructions as 10 tue num-
Der of extra copies that shall toe printed Ior sdo'
These shall have printed on their utle-page iioii
prioe. be wrapped at the Government Printing
Office and sent TO any one who shall prepay 'uc
COS; price of the paper presswork and binding anu
the hostage list of all public documents printed
for sale. with the price cost of wrapping and pos
taoe is proposed to be printed in The PdteHl O.nce
Gazette and The Congressional Record. The remain
ing sections Of the bill provide for the distribution
of the official editions of the public documents
which il is proposed greatly to reduce from tnelf
present proportions.
The report of which this bill is part, deals at
length with the subject of public printing. one
cause of the enormous expense OF the puDlc PRINT
ing the Committee say, is the extraordinary length
of the bureau reports and the republication OF many
of them as separate books or pamphlets these were
originally intended as memoranda, from Whch tAc
Secretaries compiled their annual reports; Dut now
some Of them eclipse in length the reports to whch
go l,sr.lr fha In
of these could be immensely reduced by emitting
unimpOrant statistics and discussions foreign TO the
work of bureaus and suggest that heads of depart
mcnts should transmit TO Congress only such por-
tons Of the reports of their subordlnate as relate
TO the public business which is Of nature to merit
publication. Another way in which the public
money is spent is in paving for special editions OF
reports printed for the writers OF them, which III
some instances are elegantly bound and pro-
fusey illustrated. The bill forbids the printing OF
bureau reports except by order OF the mead
of the Department. and in such case the cost IS to
be charged to the printing account of the Bureau
for which annual appropriations are made. The
Committee propose also instead OF distributing
four or five hundred full sets OF the public dccu-
ments to the bureaus of the departments, the ma
jority of which OF 10 value to those who get
them to supply tho head of each department with a
proper number of copies for distribution to his sub
ordinates as they need them. The present costs OF
the documents now furnished to the Executive De
partments is, at least $4,000. The Committee also
recommend that the distribution Of documents to
Foreign Legations be discontinued. except where
the governments Of those legations reciprocate by
furnishing our representatives with official pubca-
tons 1t has been discovered that full sets of dOcu-
ments are now sent to the legations OF some nations
which have long since ceased 20 have any separate
existence or representatives here The distribution
of these documents will, by the provisions OF the
proposed bl be entrusted 10 the Secretary OF state
The Committee make very fOrcible argument IN
favor of the sale of documents. They say: " 1t Is
the opinion of those who have given the subject
careful cOnsdeTate attention. that the sale OF our
public documents at cost price would secure larger
and better circulation for them than they ever yet
had without expense to the Government OF the
100000 agrculJlrsts in the United States who can
say that 10000 of the most benefited by the report
of Che Commissioner Of Agriculture have received
that work. of which this enormous number have
been printel but Leu every interested IN aSrl-
culture who desires to purchase this work he
equally permitted TO pdrcLasc copy at cost, aud II
it Is of such great value a. s represented an edition
of2JOOOO copies will be insufficient to meet the de-
mand.'
The report shows that Senator Anthony and his
Committee have given this important subject much
study, and it is hoped that some measure based on
this report viii he adopted.