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Show VI REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. settlement of accoupts, this office is very much embarrassed, and large loss of funds is occasioncd. Money that might be very advantageously used if the Department had any power to exercise its discretiou iu the matter, now goes back into the Treasury every year to the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars, because some change or circumstance occurs that could not possibly have been foreseen at the time the appro-priation was made. If the appropriations were made more in bulk, or so as to.allow the Department to use its discretion in their expenditure, so that any part of an appropriation not needed for the object or purpose for which it was made, or that could be spared therefrom, could be used for some other object or purpose in the Indian service, it would aid very materially the smooth and successful operations of this office; provided always, however, that no treaty stipnlations should in any manner be interfered with. No one, however well posted in the affairs of the Indian Office, can by any possibility know exactly what will be needed at every point for one year in advance, and as a matter of course mem-bers of Congress cannot be better. posted in these matters than those whose business i t is to watch every-part of it for three hundred and sixty-five days in the year. If Congress will fix the amount to be ex. pended for the Indian service, and leave the Department to distribute it as the wants of the service seem to require, I am confident it would be a great improvement on the present manner of doing business. Under the present system some non-treaty tribes of Indians reoeive 3 pounds gross of beef per capita each day, and some 2 ounces per capita each d8y. If the plan I suggest were adopted this disproportion could be remedied, while it cannot he remedied under the present system. ' l If the manner of making the appropriations for the Indian service he contrasted with that of the War Departlhent, it will add strength to the suggestions which I have made. The appropriations for the War Department for the year 1883, amounting in round numbers to $25,000,000, were made under less than sixty different heads, leaving, very properly, as I believe, a large discretion with the Secretary of War as to their disposal. The appropriation for the Indian service of about one-fourth that amount is cut up into about two hundred and sixty separate and distinct appropriations, each one of which must be used as specially provided, and for no other purpose, although it may happen that in one place there is an abundance, while in another want md famine may prevail. In other words, the whole War Department, with all its Bureaus, has only about sixty ditferent appropriations, while theIndian Bureau alone has its appropriations under two hundred and sixty different heads. I have thought it my duty to call attention to this in order that the much-needed change may be made in the manner of making appropriations for the Indian service." Congress at the last session, in the direction of this line of policy, provided in the Indian appropriation bill that "Go ~ e r ~ ~mperuotp erty now on hand,! not required at the reservation where it is; might be |