EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 31, 1876.
To the House of Representatives:
The act making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1877, is so defective in what it omits to provide for that I can not announce its approval without at the same time pointing out what seems to me to be its defects. It makes but inadequate provision for the service at best, and in some instances fails to make any provision whatever.
Notably among the first class is the reduction in the ordinary annual appropriations for the Revenue-Cutter Service, to the prejudice of the customs revenue.
The same may be said of the Signal Service, as also the failure to provide for the increased expense devolved upon the mints and assay offices by recent legislation, and thus tending to defeat the objects of that legislation.
Of this class also are public buildings, for the protection, preservation, and completion of which there is no adequate appropriation, while the sum of $100,000 only is appropriated for the repairs of the different navy yards and stations and the preservation of the same, the ordinary and customary appropriations for which are not less than $1,000,000.
A similar reduction is made in the expenses for armories and arsenals.
The provision for the ordinary judicial expenses is much less than the estimated amount for that important service, the actual expenditures of the last fiscal year, and the certain demands of the current year.
The provision for the expenses of the surveys of public lands is less than one-half of the usual appropriation for that service and what are understood to be its actual demands.
Reduction in the expenditures for light-houses, beacons, and fog stations is also made in similar proportion.