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Show 118 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONEB OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. forth in such agreements or treaties, it was not contemplated by them - that it would, at some subsequent period, enact a law, i u the considera- tion of which they could have no part, which would practically con@. cate these various moneys and divert their payment into an altogether different channel from that origi~iallyin tended and a,greed upon. In,riew of this situation, 1 would respectfully recommend that the act beamended so as to leave ic discretionary with the Secretary of the In-terior td determine as to whether or not the financial condition of any tribe, against whom judgment may he obtain,ed in the Col~rotf Olaims on acconrlt of depredations committed by members of that tribe, will , . justify the deduction from tribal moneys of the funds necessary for the payment of such judgments. At present it will be not.iced there is no such discretion, except as to what funds may be uecessary for the L L ~ ~ r - rent andnecessary support, subsistence, and educatiou" of such Indians. Under the provisions of the act above reierreil to the depredation olaims on file in this office are transferrable to the Cour.t of Olaims o ~ ~ l y upon its order &en iu each individual case ; hence it is that the great balk of them, which were on file the 3d day of March, 1891, still re-main here and the following ~~rovisiocnon cerning their care and custody , was made in said act: That the investigation and examinations, llndar the provisions of the act8 of Con-gress heretofore in foroe, of Indian depredation claim3 shall oeare upon the taking effect of this act, and the unexpended balance of the appropriation therefor shall be covered into the Treasury, except so muoh thereof as may be neaessary for disposing . of the unfinished bosiueas pertaining to the claims now under iuvestigetian i n the Interior Department pending the trausfer of baid claims and buainess to the court ' or oonrts berein provided for, and for rnakiog sooh transfers and a recordof the same and for the proper care aud ouatody of the paper8 and records relating tbereto. In obedience to the order of the court there had been transmitted a t the end of this fiscal year the papers in only 7G 5 claims, from which it will be seeu that a very inconsiderable number of claimants have taken advantage of the jurisdiction conferred upon the Court of Claims. As, P -under the act referred to, they are given 3 years from the date of its passage in which to present their petitions in the court (otherwise they will be barred), it is manifest that zlnless they proceed more expeditiously in the future than they have in'the past in transferring their cases the end of the period will find a very large number of them barred. The "care and cnscody" of these cl;~imsd evolvcs upon this office ra considerable amount of labor, of which no visible sign appears. i Attorneys and claimants milst obtain the data from these papers before chey can prepare their petitions. The searching and verification of the records; the making of copies of lost papers or records ; tKe large and miscellaneous correspondence involved; the transmittad, under the orders of the oourt, of the varions papers with all the records pertaining thereto, necessitating as it does laborious search and care-ful scrutiny in order that errors may be guarded against; as well as other poists too numerous to be specifically mentioned, make the work > |
