Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1881.djvu/19

Rh Under this provision the First Comptroller of the Treasury has held that where the purchaser has conveyed the land since June 16, 1880, his grantee, and not the purchaser, is entitled to the money, for the reason that the grantee is the assignee within the meaning of the act. Aside from the question whether the word "assignee" in the act shall be construed to mean the grantee of the land, which I do not admit, there is what seems to me to be involved a grave question. If it be admitted, as this act clearly admits, that the government honestly owes a particular person a sum of money, and therefore should pay it, can the government acquit itself of that obligation by paying the amount to another person?

I have not been able to reach the conclusion that Congress so intended to declare in the act of June 16, 1880, and have therefore declined to approve requisitions upon the Treasury for payment in this class of cases to the grantee of the land instead of the original purchaser until Congress shall declare its intention in more clear and precise terms than are contained in the act mentioned.

OFFICE OF COMMISSIONER OF RAILROADS.

The report of the Commissioner of Railroads, herewith presented, gives the operations of that office during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1881, under the law relating to indebted Pacific railroad companies and certain land-grant railroads.

Two inspection trips have been made during the year for the purpose of examining the properties and accounts of the several subsidized railroads—one by the then Commissioner, extending from April 20 to June 18, 1881, and the other by the bookkeeper temporarily in charge of the office, extending from August 18 to October 7, 1881.

About 6,900 miles of subsidized and land-grant railroads subject to the supervision of the bureau have been examined, and their books (especially those of the Union and Central Pacific roads) carefully compared with the reports as rendered by the companies.

Among the properties included in the inspections, aside from the Union and Central Pacific, were those of the Southern Pacific, Atlantic and Pacific, Central Branch Union Pacific, and the Sioux City and Pacific Companies, in all of which the United States is interested as creditor or otherwise.

Although the past severe and protracted winter was accompanied by unusual floods and storms, which destroyed much property and materially increased the expenditures for maintaining the same, it was noticeable that a substantial improvement in the property of the roads in which the government has a direct interest had been made, and in general the reports rendered indicate a marked increase in their business.

The Union Pacific Railway is building an extension from Granger—a station on their main line, 156 miles east of Ogden, to Baker City, Oreg., via Port Neuf, on the Utah Northern Railroad—which will connect at