BENJ.  HARRISON.

[Footnote 26:  See p. 238.]

EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 25, 1892.

To the Senate: 

I herewith transmit, in reply to the resolution of the Senate of June 6, 1892, a report from the Secretary of State, with its accompanying papers, in relation to guano deposits on Areas Cays or Islands.

BENJ.  HARRISON.

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 27, 1892.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

I transmit herewith, with its accompaniments, a report from the Secretary of the Navy of the Results of the survey made pursuant to the act of March 2, 1891, “to enable the President to cause careful soundings to be made between San Francisco, Cal., and Honolulu, in the Kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands, for the purpose of determining the practicability of the laying of a telegraphic cable between those points.”

BENJ.  HARRISON.

VETO MESSAGES.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 19, 1892.

To the Senate: 

I return herewith without my approval the bill (S. 2729) entitled “An act to amend an act entitled ’An act to establish circuit courts of appeals, and to define and regulate in certain cases the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, and for other purposes.’”

The original act to which this amendment is proposed, constituting an intermediate court of appeals, had for its object the relief of the Supreme Court by limiting the cases which might be brought up for hearing in that court.  The first section of the bill under consideration allows appeals in criminal cases where the sentence imposes no imprisonment and the fine is as much as $1,000.  The effect of this provision will be to bring to the Supreme Court many cases that in my opinion should be finally determined in the intermediate appellate court, and so in part to defeat the general purpose of Congress in constituting the intermediate court.  But this objection would not alone have sufficient weight in my mind to induce me to return the bill.  Section 3 of the bill is as follows: 

That no appeal shall hereafter be allowed from judgments of the Court of Claims in cases under the act of March 3, 1891, entitled “An act to provide for the adjudication and payment of claims arising from Indian depredations,” except where the adjudication involves the construction or application of the Constitution or the validity or construction of a treaty or the constitutionality of a law of the United States:  Provided, however, That upon such appeal it shall be competent for the Supreme Court to require, by certiorari or otherwise, the whole case to be certified for its review and determination upon the facts as well as the law.

I am advised by the Attorney-General that under the Indian-depredations act 8,000 cases, involving an