Why in the amendment of the Committee the amount of the proposed issue is placed at $400,000,000 I am at a loss to conceive. Here is no equivalent of any one loan, nor of two or more loans. It is an accidental sum, and might have been more or less for the same reason that it is what it is. The term Ten-Twenties seems also accidental, as it is unquestionably new. Of course it is assumed that the amount proposed of Ten-Twenties at five per cent. will absorb an equal amount of Five-Twenties at six per cent., irrespective of any particular loan; but I am at a loss to see on what grounds the holders of the sixes can be induced to make the exchange. Will the substitute bonds be considered of equal value? I affirm not. But assuming that they are acceptable, how shall they be acceptably distributed? Shall the first comer be first served? If all were at the same starting-point, the palm might be justly bestowed upon the most swift. In the latitude allowed, stretching over all the Five-Twenties, there would be opportunity for favoritism; and with this opportunity there would be temptation and suspicion. The change from a Ten-Forty bond to a Ten-Twenty bond, as proposed by the Committee, is a change, so far as I can perceive, made up of disadvantages. To the nation there is the same rate of interest, and there is the same fixed period during which this interest must be paid; while, on the other hand, the period of optional payment is reduced from thirty years to ten years. If there be advantage in this reduction, I do not perceive it. If at the expiration of ten years we are in a condition to pay, we may do so as readily under a Ten-Forty as under the Ten-Twenty proposed. If during the subsequent ten years of option our advancing credit enables us to command a lower rate of interest, surely we may do so just as favorably under one as under the other. There is no benefit within the bounds of imagination, so far at least as I can discern, which will not redound to the nation from Ten-Forties as much as from Ten-Twenties. On the other hand, it is within possibilities, from disturbance in the money markets of the world, or from other unforeseen circumstances, that it may not be convenient during the short optional period of the Committee to obtain the necessary coin without a sacrifice. The greater latitude of payment leaves the nation master of the situation, to pay or not to pay, as is most for the national advantage.