year of $8,299,820.90, being only $50,000 less
than was derived from all the States of the Union during the previous
year. The expenditures show a still more favorable result. The amount
expended in 1861 was $13,606,759.11. For the last year the amount has been
reduced to $11,125,364.13, showing a decrease of about $2,481,000 in the
expenditures as compared with the preceding year, and about $3,750,000 as
compared with the fiscal year 1860. The deficiency in the department
for the previous year was $4,551,966.98. For the last fiscal year it was
reduced to $2,112,814.57. These favorable results are in part owing to the
cessation of mail service in the insurrectionary States and in part to a
careful review of all expenditures in that department in the interest of
economy. The efficiency of the postal service, it is believed, has
also been much improved. The Postmaster-General has also opened a
correspondence through the Department of State with foreign governments
proposing a convention of postal representatives for the purpose of
simplifying the rates of foreign postage and to expedite the foreign
mails. This proposition, equally important to our adopted citizens and to
the commercial interests of this country, has been favorably entertained
and agreed to by all the governments from whom replies have been received.

I ask the attention of Congress to the suggestions of the
Postmaster-General in his report respecting the further legislation
required, in his opinion, for the benefit of the postal service.

The Secretary of the Interior reports as follows in regard to the public
lands:

"The public lands have ceased to be a source of revenue. From the 1st
July, 1861, to the 30th September, 1862, the entire cash receipts from the
sale of lands were $137,476.2--a sum much less than the expenses of our
land system during the same period. The homestead law, which will take
effect on the 1st of January next, offers such inducements to settlers
that sales for cash cannot be expected to an extent sufficient to meet the
expenses of the General Land Office and the cost of surveying and bringing
the land into market."

The discrepancy between the sum here stated as arising from the sales of
the public lands and the sum derived from the same source as reported from
the Treasury Department arises, as I understand, from the fact that the
periods of time, though apparently were not really coincident at the
beginning point, the Treasur