Many of you will bring to the consideration of the
subject the advantages of local knowledge and greater experience, and
all will be desirous of making an early and final disposition of every
disturbing question in regard to this important interest. If these
suggestions shall in any degree contribute to the accomplishment of
so important a result, it will afford me sincere satisfaction.
In some sections of the country most of the public lands have been sold,
and the registers and receivers have very little to do. It is a subject
worthy of inquiry whether in many cases two or more districts may not
be consolidated and the number of persons employed in this business
considerably reduced. Indeed, the time will come when it will be the
true policy of the General Government, as to some of the States, to
transfer to them for a reasonable equivalent all the refuse and unsold
lands and to withdraw the machinery of the Federal land offices
altogether. All who take a comprehensive view of our federal system and
believe that one of its greatest excellences consists in interfering as
little as possible with the internal concerns of the States look forward
with great interest to this result.
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