The House of Representatives passes the General Pension bill for the year ending June 30, 1907. The bill appropriates $140,245,000. Congressman Gardner, of Michigan, declares that when the last pensioner on account of the Civil War has disappeared from the rolls, $12,000,000,000 will have been expended. February 9.—The Illinois coal operators decide to refuse the demands of the United Mine Workers for an increase in wages. The Pennsylvania House of Representatives passes a resolution directing the attorney general of that state to ascertain whether any railroad companies in Pennsylvania are engaged in the mining of coal, and if so, to proceed against them. By reducing the rate of railroad fares to two cents a mile, it is estimated that the people of Ohio will be saved $4,000,000 a year, or a sum equal to almost all the taxes paid for the support of the state government. The Senate Committee takes under consideration the Hepburn railroad rate bill. The taking of testimony against Senator Reed Smoot, the Mormon, ends. Senator Smoot’s counsel will introduce testimony in his defense. The House of Representatives passes 429 pension bills. The Judiciary Committee of the House begins an investigation to ascertain whether or not Congress has the power for Federal control of insurance. Secretary Taft appears before the Senate Committee on the Philippines and says the United States will probably suffer no reduction in tariff income under the Philippine tariff bill passed by the House of Representatives. Secretary Root proposes to reorganize the State Department and put it on a business basis. Charles E. Magoon, governor of the Panama Canal Zone, appears before the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals. He declares the sanitary conditions good, the Supreme Court of Panama capable and impartial, and advises the coinage of silver money for use on the Isthmus. The differences between President Dolan, of the United Mine Workers of the Pittsburg district, and the delegates to the convention are taken to the courts. February 11.—Samuel Glasgow, manager of a milling company of Spokane, Washington, claims to have received Chinese papers from his representative in China, claiming that a recent speech of William J. Bryan to Chinese merchants had been used to stir up renewed antipathy to American goods. John Mitchell, President of the United Mine Workers, reaches New York City to confer with the mine operators on the new scale of wages demanded by the miners. President Baer, of the Reading Railroad, states that the Pennsylvania Legislature has not the power to interfere with the vested rights of coal-carrying railroads.