Morning journal and courier., 1881-02-12
THE NATIONAL CAPITAL.

Vice President Arthur's BirthpIace-Th,
 Cox ReappOrtiOnment BiIl-OppositioI
 from the River and Harbor Advocate.
 The Commerce Committee Bent on
 Pushing Their BilI-Other Matters.
 WAsHNGToN, Feb. 11.-There is 8 gooo
 deal of talk about the proposed investigation
 of the birthplace of General Arthur, but il
 lis not seriously believed that anything will
 come of it. General Arthur's friends say he
 was born in Vermont, and that there will be
 no trouble to establish that fact.
 MT. Cox's determined opposition to the
 river and harbor appropriation bill has put
 his apportionment bill in some jeopardy. A
 very large majority of the House being in fa-
 vor of the river and harbor bill, they will
 vote every time to take that up instead of the
 apportionment bill. Tomorrow MT. Reagan
 will move go into Committee of the Whole, | and the friends of the bill indicate purpose for long session in order to make as much
 progress as possible. Under the ruling made
 to-day the bill must be considered paragraph #by paragraph, and it is not all improbable
 that the bill will be swelIed to many millions { more than it now contains That amend ments will be offered increasing the items ; of appropriation there is no doubt, and it remains to be seen whether combination can be formed strong enough to vote in
 creased appropriations. One reason why an effort will be made to hold in the session for
 a long time tomorrow is that there will not
 be another opportunity to bring up the bill again until Tuesday, as by an order made some days ago all of Monday after the morn 4 ing hour will be devoted to the consideration I of business of the District of Columbia.
 The House Committee on Appropriations to-day agreed to the bill of Representative Whitthorne appropriating $175, ,000 to fit out Ia vessel to search for the missing steamer 3Jeannette of the Arctic exploring expedition, and ordered the same to be reported to the House.
 At the meeting of the Foreign Affairs com 1mittee of the House MT. Rice submitted re- | port on the memorial of the State of Maine| in relation to the navigation and bridging of pertain rivers which constitute the boundary lline between the United States and the Do-! lminion of Canada. It recommends bill ap-l fpropriating $6O, ,OOO, the sum prayed for by fthe State of Maine for the erection of bridges| lover the St. John and St. Frances rivers, pro. I sVided Canada shall appropriate an equal' amount, which was agreed to and ordered to| Joe reported favorably to the House. The subcommittee of the Senate Judiciaryl 1committee appointed to consider the nomina- tion of Judge Billings to be United States cir scuit judge for the southern district held al meeting to-day and agreed to report to thei full committee the nomination with ad :! verse recommendation. Senator Conkling, iti lis said, did not concur in the report of; |Messrs. Bayard and Garland the other two, members of the subcommittee. A meeting of the House Committee onE |Commerce will be held tomorrow morning toI adopt policy regarding the river and har-l |bor bill proposition will be made at the meeting to take up the bill as soon as possi- |ble after the meeting of the House and re- main in session over Sunday if necessary untilB lit is passed. Information has been received here at theA State department through gh the American min { lister at Parisi that the government of Framed intends shortly to issue invitation to the principal governments of the world to par |ticipate in national monetary conference. While France has never demonetized silverk |coinage, it has been suspended so long that there is growing scarcity of standard silverE \ |coin. Italy is also prepared to re. sume specie payments, provided bi-metallick E standard coin can be adopted. The balanced |of trade in favor of the United States has 2 Ito an appreciable extent diminished the SUD- ply of gold coin in the several countries of Europe and this circumstance may havek some effect favorable to the restoration of aE double standard. It is the opinion of many of the silver men in the House that the pros pect of an international agreement regardinek Silver as standard of value is much brighten now than when the monetary conferenceE proposed by the United States was held.