The Secretary of the Interior has prepared and submits with his letter transmitting the report of the commission the draft of a bill embodying those recommendations of the commission requiring legislation.

The appropriations necessary to carry into effect the provisions of the act should be promptly made and be immediately available.

BENJ.  HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, February 12, 1890.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, respecting the International Marine Conference which was held in the city of Washington in the year 1889, together with a copy of the proceedings of the conference, including the final act.

BENJ.  HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 17, 1890.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

I transmit herewith a communication of the 11th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, submitting a copy of a report from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and accompanying draft of a bill to amend the first section of an act entitled “An act to provide for the allotment of lands in severalty to Indians on the various reservations, and to extend the protection of the laws of the United States and the Territories over the Indians, and for other purposes,” approved February 8, 1887.

The matter is presented for the consideration and action of Congress.

BENJ.  HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 18, 1890.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

I transmit herewith a communication of the 8th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, submitting a report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and accompanying agreement, made with the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands of Dakota or Sioux Indians, for the purchase and release of the surplus lands in the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation, in the States of North and South Dakota, the negotiations for said purchase and release having been conducted under the authority contained in the fifth section of the general allotment act of February 8, 1887 (24 U.S.  Statutes at Large, p. 388), which provides, among other things, that the “purchase shall not be complete until ratified by Congress, and the form and manner of executing such release shall also be prescribed by Congress.”

This agreement involves a departure from the terms of the general allotment act in at least one important particular.  It gives to each member of the tribe 160 acres of land without regard to age or sex, while the general law gives this allotment only to heads of families.  There are, I think, serious objections to the basis adopted in the general law, especially in its application to married women; but if the basis of the agreement herewith submitted is accepted, it would, I think, result in some cases, where there are large families of minor children, in excessive allotments to a single family.  Whatever is done in this case will of course become in some sense a precedent in the cases yet to be dealt with.