so amend these laws as to render them less liable to abuses.  As the chief motive for an evasion of the laws and the principal cause of their result in land accumulation instead of land distribution is the facility with which transfers are made of the right intended to be secured to settlers, it may be deemed advisable to provide by legislation some guards and checks upon the alienation of homestead rights and lands covered thereby until patents issue.

Last year an Executive proclamation was issued directing the removal of fences which inclosed the public domain.  Many of these have been removed in obedience to such order, but much of the public land still remains within the lines of these unlawful fences.  The ingenious methods resorted to in order to continue these trespasses and the hardihood of the pretenses by which in some cases such inclosures are justified are fully detailed in the report of the Secretary of the Interior.

The removal of the fences still remaining which inclose public lands will be enforced with all the authority and means with which the executive branch of the Government is or shall be invested by the Congress for that purpose.

The report of the Commissioner of Pensions contains a detailed and most satisfactory exhibit of the operations of the Pension Bureau during the last fiscal year.  The amount of work done was the largest in any year since the organization of the Bureau, and it has been done at less cost than during the previous year in every division.

On the 30th day of June, 1886, there were 365,783 pensioners on the rolls of the Bureau.

Since 1861 there have been 1,018,735 applications for pensions filed, of which 78,834 were based upon service in the War of 1812.  There were 621,754 of these applications allowed, including 60,178 to the soldiers of 1812 and their widows.

The total amount paid for pensions since 1861 is $808,624,811.57.

The number of new pensions allowed during the year ended June 30, 1886, is 40,857, a larger number than has been allowed in any year save one since 1861.  The names of 2,229 pensioners which had been previously dropped from the rolls were restored during the year, and after deducting those dropped within the same time for various causes a net increase remains for the year of 20,658 names.

From January 1, 1861, to December 1, 1885, 1,967 private pension acts had been passed.  Since the last-mentioned date, and during the last session of the Congress, 644 such acts became laws.

It seems to me that no one can examine our pension establishment and its operations without being convinced that through its instrumentality justice can be very nearly done to all who are entitled under present laws to the pension bounty of the Government.