Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1886-05-01
OUR eREAT MEN IN COUNCIL.
Senator Beck Takes Occasion To Attack
Subsidies and Make . Free
Trade Speech.
The River and HarbOr Bill and the
:. Trade Dollar Hold the Floor
In the House.
Formal Reception of the New Chinese
Minister by President Cleveland.
Speeches BY Both.

| W~AsHINGTON, April 29.-ln the Senat,
Mr.. Pike obtained unanimous consent te
take up the Fourth of July claim bill, and
it was adopted as presented. The Post
Office bill was then taken up. IT,.
The P~ostofice appropriation bill wal
then taken up. Mr.. Beck having the floor
He said the provision under discussion had
nothing to do with the postal service, but
simply looked to the building up OF ou1
commercial relations. Appropriation bills
should not include new legislation. He in
sisted that it raj bad policy for the Re.
publicans to rec an administrative pro-
vision against which the President, the
Postmaster-General, and the House oi
Representatives all protested. The Sena-
tor from Maine (Mr. Frye had sought to
make the foreign mail provision a manda-
tory one, but the Postmas' er-General had
shown to the Committee that it would be
so detrimental to the public service that
u ma jority of the committee had not been
able to submit to it. The amendment pro-
posed by the Committee limited the
Postmaster-General however: to Ameri-
can vessels, and he was to make con-
tracts for five years. Senators ON the
other side, Mr.. Beck said, had not been
slow to endeavor to embarass the Admin
istration for political advantage, but they
were going too far in endeavoring to force
on the President and Postmaster General
notwithstanding their protest, Il course
that they had shown was not for the good
of the public service and which would only
result N giving a bounty or subsidy to q
few persons. He dwelt with emphasis on
the spectacle OF a commercial people per-
mitting their mails to lie in the p~ostofice
day after day waiting for the slow sub
sidary vessels to sail. while there vas a
swift vessel at hand, ready to carry the
mails at once.
AGAINST SUBSIDIES.
Continuing Mr.. Beck said the object OF
appropaiating this 100000 WAS O to
benefit the mails, but t. put money into the
pockets Of q few men or corporations who
own American vessels and had a monopoly
of the coastwise trade. 1t was al attempt
to in .rease appropriations beyond the
amount which the Postmaster General said
he could well use. 1t was against the course
recommended by the Postmaster-Generai
and the President, and it was making the
Postofice Department the fundamentally
OF subsidy to favor individuals. Referring
to American commerce Mr.. Beck sal! no
one wou d 60 further than he would to ex-
tend it, but he wanted it done in u proper
way. Men might fairly differ as to the best
mode OF accomplishing an object. A ship
was but a wagon so far as it's uses
were concerned. When q Western man
wanted to get bis corn or cattle to Liver
pool, what he would want to find out
was how much it would cost him to get it
there. That decided his profits. A ship
costing 100000 would carry his freight
chea., er than one costing $500, OOO. That
was al important element. Mr.. Beck then
entered upon an elaborate discussion OF
the tariff, in which he insisted that when a
a man was compelled to sell i. the cheap
est market he should be allowed to buy in
the cheapest market;that when m~anufactur-
ers had produced all that they could sell
they encouraged strikes, and were glad
when their workingmen struck. Then the
price Of their manufactures went up, but
the workman's family was starving.
Mr.. Beck occupied the floor, though with
considerable interruption, three hours and
a half.
Mr.. Hale then addressed the Senate in
of the amendment which appropri-
100000 to pay for carrying the
States mail to Central and South
America, Australia, China and Japan, but
before he concluded his remarks the Senate
went into executive session, and when the
were re-opened adjourned.