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or over $13,000,000, "Prompty put out in purchasing bonds, as incupeediest way of relieving the demand for currency. If recomrse could not have been had-to-the reserve, the Secretary would have been, ander the necessity of selling coin to obtain the currency necessary to pay the government indebtedness, or would have suspended currency payments. That there was no doubt as to the right to issue all or any portion of the reserve was best shown by the limited amount of the currency balance when the minimum amount of legal tender notes was in circulation. Now that but $18,000,000 of the reserve remained, with no authority to exceed the $400,000,000 limit, it would be necessary to hold it in reserve for any emergency. There was no reason for apprehending any further expansion of legal tenders beyond $332,000,000. There had been much criticism as to the power of the Secretary of the Treasury to contract the value of greenbacks. If the proposed act, fixing the amount at $400,000,000, became a law, it would not, as he had already said change the existing law, and the minimum would still be $356,000,000, to which point, in his opinion, it could again be reduced. With regard to increasing the national banking circulation, the addition of $46,000,000, with a redistribution of $25,000,000 in accordance with the existing act, would undoubtedly give those portions of the country clamoring for more banking facilities all the capital they needed for years to come, and he had now no reason to believe that Congress would pass any measure which would not meet with his ungualifled approval. Termination of the Labore of the Alabama Mixed Claims CommissionAmount To Be Paid the British Government. Henry Howard, Esq., late Agent of her Majesty's government, under the American and British Mixed Commission, will disburse the money awarded by it to British claimants-a little less than $2,000,000-which sum is to be paid by the United States to the British government by the 26th of next September. The money will be paid by Mr. Howard to the claimants or their legal representatives. The amount thus to be disbursed is included in the estimates of the Department of State. The business of the Commission was closed to the entire satisfaction of all its members. Thomas C. Cox, Esq., the late Secretary and Disbursing Officer of the Commission, to-day received the following letter:LONDON, FOREIGN OFFICE. March 19, 1874. SIR:-The Mixed Commission having concluded its labors, and your duties in connection with it being terminated, I am directed by the Earl of Derby to thank you on behalf of Her Majesty's government for the services you have rendered as Secretary to the Commission. His lordship has great pleasure in bearing testimony to the ability and impartiality with which, as he is informed, you have discharged very delicate and sometimes perplexing duties, and he has no doubt that the successful termination of the labors of the Commission in the period allowed by the treaty, was in great measure owing to your efforts. I am your most obedient humble servant, TENTERDEN. Dividends to Creditors of Insolvent National Banks. The Comptroller of the Currency yesterday declared a dividend in favor of the creditors of the First National Bank of Mansfield, Ohio, of twenty-five per cent; also the Merchants' National Bank of Petersburg, Va., of twenty-five per cent. Dividends were also declared during the month of March as follows:National Bank of the Commonwealth, New York, fifty per cent; First National Bank of Petersburg, Va., twenty-five per cent; First National Bank of Carlisle, Pa., twenty-five per cent; First National Bank of Washington. D. c., twenty per cent, making in all a dividend of fifty per cent. A dividend will also be paid to the creditors of the First National Bank of New Orleans of twenty-five per cent as soon as the necessary schedules can be prepared, making dividends of sixty per cent in all, to the creditors of that bank. The Financial Bill Amended and Under Consideration in the Senate. The following is the Finance bill as amended and as it now stands before the Senate:A bill to provide for the redemption and reissue of United States notes and for free banking. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the maximum amount 01 United States notes is hereby fixed at $400,000,000. SECTION 2. That $46,000,000 in notes for circulation, in addition to such circulation now allowed by law, shall be issued to national banking associations now organized and which may beorganized hereafter; and such increased circulation shall be distributed among the several States as provided in section 1 or the act entitled "An act to provide for the redemption of the three per centum temporary loan certificates and for an increase of national bank notes," approved July 12, 1870. SEC. 3.-That each national banking association now organized or hereafter to be organized, shall keep and maincain, as a part of Its reserve required by law, one-fourth part of the coin received by it as interest on bonds of the United States deposited as security for circulating notes on gov. ernment deposits; and that nereafter only onefourth of the reserve now prescribed by law for national banking associations shall consist of balances due to an association available for the redemption of its circulating notes from associations in cities of redemption, and upon which balances no interest shall be paid. SEC. 4.-That nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize any increase of the principal of the public debt of the United States.
