_ per acre, and shall have a patent for the same
whenever, within two years after their selection, they shall have
furnished evidence satisfactory to the Secretary of the Interior that
they have erected and have in operation on the said lands iron works
with a capacity for manufacturing 1,500 tons of iron per annum:
_Provided_, That the said lands shall revert to the United States in
case the above-mentioned iron works be not erected within the specified
time: _And provided_, That until the title to the said lands shall have
been perfected the timber shall not be cut off from more than one
section of the said lands.

To confer the special privileges specified in this fourth section
appears to be the chief object of the bill, the provisions of which are
subject to some of the most important objections that induced me to
return to the Senate with my disapproval the bill entitled "An act to
enable the New York and Montana Iron Mining and Manufacturing Company
to purchase a certain amount of the public lands not now in market."
That bill authorized the same corporation to select and survey in the
Territory of Montana, in square form, twenty-one sections of land, three
of which might contain coal and iron ore, for which the minimum rate of
$1.25 per acre was to be paid. The present bill omits these sections of
mineral lands, and directs the surveyor-general to select and survey the
timber lands; but it contains the objectionable feature of granting
to a private mining and manufacturing corporation exclusive rights and
privileges in the public domain which are by law denied to individuals.
The first choice of timber land in the Territory is bestowed upon a
corporation foreign to the Territory and over which Congress has no
control. The surveyor-general of the district, a public officer who
should have no connection with any purchase of public land, is made the
agent of the corporation to select the land, the selections to be made
in the absence of all competition; and over 11,000 acres are bestowed
at the lowest price of public lands. It is by no means certain that
the substitution of alternate sections for the compact body of lands
contemplated by the other bill is any less injurious to the public
interest, for alternate sections stripped of timber are not likely
to enhance the value of those reserved by the Government. Be this as
it may, this bill bestows a large monopoly of public lands without
adequate c