Venezuela on account of claims of citizens of the United States under the convention of the 25th of April, 1866, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, to whom the resclution was referred. To the Senate: U. S. GRANT. WASHINGTON, May 19, 1876. I transmit herewith, in answer to a resolution of the Senate of the 27th March last, a report* from the Secretary of State and an accompanying paper. U. S. GRANT. To the House of Representatives: WASHINGTON, May 31, 1876. I transmit, in answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 22d instant, a report of the Secretary of State, with its accompanying papers.† U. S. GRANT. EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 7, 1876. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I herewith transmit the report of the board appointed to test iron, steel, and other metals, in accordance with the provisions of section 4 of "An act making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1876, and for other purposes," approved March 3, 1875. This board is to determine by actual tests the strength and value of all metals, and to prepare tables which will exhibit their strength and value for all constructions. The accompanying memorials and resolutions of scientific associations, colleges, and schools strongly advocate the continuation of this board, which is national in its character and general in its investigations. The board asks for an appropriation of $50,000 for the ensuing year, and that any unexpended balances remaining on hand on the 30th of June, 1876, may be reappropriated. This recommendation is submitted for favorable action, in the belief that the labors of the board will, in the benefits accruing to important industrial interests, more than repay to the country at large any money that may be so expended. U. S. GRANT. To the House of Representatives: WASHINGTON, June 10, 1876. I transmit herewith, in answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 30th day of March last, a report from the Secretary of * Relating to amount of money in the custody of the Department of State to the credit of the awards of the mixed commission under the treaty with Venezuela of April 25, 1866. Relating to the steps taken for the protection of American citizens in the Ottoman dominions. State, with accompanying papers, which presents the correspondence and condition of the question* up to the day of its date. U. S. GRANT. To the Senate: WASHINGTON, June 14, 1876. In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 26th April ultimo, I herewith transmit a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents. U. S. GRANT. EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 17, 1876. To the Senate and House of Representatives: The near approach of a new fiscal year and the failure of Congress up to this time to provide the necessary means to continue all the functions of Government make it my duty to call your attention to the embarrassments that must ensue if the fiscal year is allowed to close without remedial action on your part. Article I, section 9, of the Constitution declares: No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law. To insure economy of expenditure and security of the public treasure Congress has from time to time enacted laws to restrain the use of public moneys, except for the specific purpose for which appropriated and within the time for which appropriated; and to prevent contracting debts in anticipation of appropriate appropriations, Revised Statutes, section 3679, provides: No Department of the Government shall expend in any one fiscal year any sum in excess of appropriations made by Congress for that fiscal year, or involve the Government in any contract for the future payment of money in excess of such appropriations. Section 3732 provides: No contract or purchase on behalf of the United States shall be made unless the same is authorized by law or is under an appropriation adequate to its fulfillment, except in the War and Navy Departments, for clothing, subsistence, forage, fuel, quarters, or transportation, which, however, shall not exceed the necessities of the current year. Section 3678, as follows: All sums appropriated for the various branches of expenditure in the public service shall be applied solely to the objects for which they are respectively made, and for no others. *The refusal of Great Britain to surrender certain fugitive criminals in accordance with the extradition clause of the treaty of August 9, 1842. + Relating to claims before and judgments rendered by the Alabama Claims Commission arising from captures by the rebel cruiser Shenandoah. Section 3690, that All balances of appropriations contained in the annual appropriation bills, and made specifically for the service of any fiscal year, and remaining unexpended at the expiration of such fiscal year, shall only be applied to the payment of expenses properly incurred during that year or to the fulfillment of contracts properly made within that year; and balances not needed for such purposes shall be carried to the surplus fund. This section, however, shall not apply to appropriations known as permanent or indefinite appropriations. The effect of the laws quoted, taken in connection with the constitutional provision referred to, is, as above stated, to prohibit any outlay of public money toward defraying even the current and necessary expenses of Government after the expiration of the year for which appropriated, excepting when those expenses are provided for by some permanent appropriation, and excepting in the War and Navy Departments, under section 3732. The number of permanent appropriations are very limited, and cover but few of the necessary expenditures of the Government. They are nearly all, if not quite all, embraced in sections 3687, 3688, and 3689 of the Revised Statutes. That contained in section 3687 is applicable to expenses of collecting the revenue from customs, that in section 3688 to the payment of interest on the public debt, and that in section 3689 to various objects too numerous to detail here. It will be observed that while section 3679, quoted above, provides that no Department shall in any one fiscal year involve the Government in any contract for the future payment of money in excess of the appropriation for that year, section 3732, also quoted above, confers, by clear implication, upon the heads of the War and Navy Departments full authority, even in the absence of any appropriation, to purchase or contract for clothing, subsistence, forage, fuel, quarters, or transportation not exceeding the necessities of the current year. The latter provision is special and exceptional in its character, and is to be regarded as excluded from the operation of the former more general one. But if any of the appropriation bills above enumerated should fail to be matured before the expiration of the current fiscal year, the Government would be greatly embarrassed for want of the necessary funds to carry on the service. Precluded from expending money not appropriated, the Departments would have to suspend the service so far as the appropriations for it should have failed to be made. A careful examination of this subject will demonstrate the embarrassed condition all branches of the Government will be in, and especially the executive, if there should be a failure to pass the necessary appropriation bills before the 1st of July, or otherwise provide. I commend this subject most earnestly to your consideration, and urge that some measure be speedily adopted to avert the evils which would result from nonaction by Congress. I will venture the suggestion, by M P-VOL VII-24 way of remedy, that a joint resolution, properly guarded, might be passed through the two Houses of Congress, extending the provisions of all appropriations for the present fiscal year to the next in all cases where there is a failure on the 1st of July to supply such appropriation; each appropriation so extended to hold good until Congress shall have passed a corresponding appropriation applicable to the new fiscal year, when all moneys expended under laws enacted for this fiscal year shall be deducted from the corresponding appropriation for the next. To make my ideas on this subject more clear, I have caused to be drawn up a joint resolution embodying them more fully. U. S. GRANT. JOINT RESOLUTION to provide for defraying temporarily the ordinary and necessary expenses of the public service. Whereas the ordinary and necessary expenses of the public service in its various branches, comprising among others the expenses which especially pertain to the legislative, executive, and judicial departments of the Government, to the consular and diplomatic service, to the postal service, to the support of the Army, and to the maintenance of the Navy, are generally met by annual appropriations which expire at the end of the current fiscal year; and Whereas no public funds will be available to defray these expenses as the same shall accrue after that period unless appropriations shall have been previously made therefor by law; and Whereas, to avoid the great embarrassment to the public service that might otherwise ensue, it is expedient to make provision for defraying temporarily such of these expenses as would be unprovided for in case some one of the usual annual appropriation bills designed to provide therefor should fail to be matured by the end of the fiscal year now current: Therefore, Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in case any of the following appropriation bills for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1877, shall not have passed by the commencement of such year, so that the funds to be appropriated thereby may then be available for expenditure-that is to say, the bill providing for the legislative, executive, and judicial expenses; the bill providing for the consular and diplomatic expenses; the bill providing for the service of the Post-Office Department; the bill providing for the support of the Army, and the bill providing for the naval service--the appropriation act for the current fiscal year corresponding in its general description and object to such appropriation bill shall extend to the fiscal year next ensuing until such appropriation bill is enacted and takes effect, to the end that the provisions of such appropriation act which apply to the ordinary and necessary expenses of the public service for the current fiscal year shall in like manner be applicable to similar expenses which may accrue during the period intervening between the end of the current fiscal year and the time when such appropriation bill for the next ensuing fiscal year shall be enacted and take effect. WASHINGTON, June 20, 1876. To the Senate and House of Representatives: By the tenth article of the treaty between the United States and Great Britain signed in Washington on the 9th day of August, 1842, it was agreed that the two Governments should, upon mutual requisitions respectively made, deliver up to justice all persons who, being charged with certain crimes therein enumerated, committed within the jurisdiction of either, should seek an asylum or be found within the territories of the other. The only condition or limitation contained in the treaty to the reciprocal obligation thus to deliver up the fugitive was that it should be done only upon such evidence of criminality as, according to the laws of the place where the fugitive or person so charged should be found, would justify his apprehension and commitment for trial if the crime or offense had there been committed. In the month of February last a requisition was duly made, in pursuance of the provisions of the treaty, by this Government upon that of Great Britain for the surrender of one Ezra D. Winslow, charged with extensive forgeries and the utterance of forged paper, committed within the jurisdiction of the United States, who had sought an asylum and was found within the territories of Her Britannic Majesty and was apprehended in London. The evidence of the criminality of the fugitive was duly furnished and heard, and, being found sufficient to justify his apprehension and commitment for trial if the crimes had been committed in Great Britain, he was held and committed for extradition. Her Majesty's Government, however, did not deliver up the fugitive in accordance with the terms of the treaty, notwithstanding every requirement thereof had been met on the part of the United States, but, instead of surrendering the fugitive, demanded certain assurances or stipulations not mentioned in the treaty, but foreign to its provisions, as a condition of the performance by Great Britain of her obligations under the treaty. In a recent communication to the House of Representatives, and in answer to a call from that body for information on this case, I submitted the correspondence which has passed between the two Governments with reference thereto. It will be found in Executive Document No. 173 of the House of Representatives of the present session, and I respectfully refer thereto for more detailed information bearing on the question. It appears from the correspondence that the British Government bases its refusal to surrender the fugitive and its demand for stipulations or assurances from this Government on the requirements of a purely domestic enactment of the British Parliament, passed in the year 1870. This act was brought to the notice of this Government shortly after its enactment, and Her Majesty's Government was advised that the United States understood it as giving continued effect to the existing engagements under the treaty of 1842 for the extradition of criminals; and with this knowledge on its part, and without dissent from the declared views of the United States as to the unchanged nature of the reciprocal rights and obligations of the two powers under the treaty, Great Britain has continued to make requisitions and to grant surrenders in numerous instances, without suggestion that it was contemplated to depart from the practice under the treaty which has obtained for |