Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1896 — WASHINGTON. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON.

The Treasury Department is struggling with the problem of" whether imported holy water is subject to a tariff tax. The triennial international counting of all mails going from one country to another in the postal union will take place irom May 1 to May 28. It is the expectation of Secretary Morton to have covered back into the treasury at the end of the present administration in the neighborhood of $2,000,000 from the appropriations for the Agricultural Department for the four years of which he shall have been at its head. To do this he plans to save $500,000 a year, but the aggregate may be smaller than hoped for owing to the rigid pruning of estimates. Already the amount returned to the treasury from these appropriations has reached $1,014,000. The President has stolen a march on Spain in the appointment of Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, of Virginia, as Consul General at Havana, vice Ramon O. Williams, resigned. He has long wanted to send a special commissioner to Cuba to ascertain exact faqfs with regard to the scope and significance of the revolution, But from the outset he encountered the angry opposition of the Madrid Government, which resented the suggestion as insufferable impertinence and, gratuitous intermeddling in a strictly family affair. He could not move Spain from this view, but he never for a moment abandoned the idea. It occurred to him that he could accomplish his purpose by appointing a Consul General at Havana,, who could serve in the double capacity of diplomatic representative of this Government and commissioner—the latter, of course, under private instructions. After a careful canvass of names he selected Gen. Lee as best fitted to perform the delicate duty.