Statutory Construction-Public Printer-Comptroller of the Treasury-AttorneyGeneral. STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION PUBLIC PRINTER - COMPTROLLER OF THE TREASURY-ATTORNEY-GENERAL. It is a general rule of statutory interpretation that in cases of apparent conflict the more specific provisions should govern, and this is especially the case when the specific provisions follow the general one. Under section 56 of the public printing and binding act of January 12, 1895, chapter 23, the Public Printer should print in slip form and distribute 760 copies of private laws, postal conventions, and treaties. To what appropriation the expense of these copies is to be charged is a question which may be asked of the Comptroller of the Treasury, and should not be answered by the Attorney-General. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, August 31, 1896. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge your communication of July 18 relating to the questions in controversy between your Department and the Public Printer respecting the proper construction of the public printing and binding act of January 12, 1895, chapter 23. This act is long and complicated; but I am informed by the Public Printer that he does not desire to submit an argument upon these questions, so that I am obliged to pass upon them without knowing the ground upon which he made the rulings of which you complain. Section 56 of the act provides that there shall be printed in slip form 460 copies of Private Laws, Postal Conventions, and Treaties, which shall be distributed as follows: To the House document room, 100 copies; to the Senate document room, 100 copies; to the Department of State, 500 copies; to the Treasury Department, 60 copies. Adding up these specifications gives a total of 760 copies, or 300 more than the total as given in the statute. The Public Printer refuses to supply more than 460 copies all told; and he deducts the whole shortage of 300 from the quota of your Department. I am unable to perceive any justification for charging the whole deficit to your Department and deducting nothing from the quotas of the House and Senate document rooms or of the Treasury Department. This action seems to me purely arbitrary. I am further of the opinion that the Public Printer should print and distribute 760 copies. It is a general rule of statutory interpretation that in cases of apparent conflict Statutory Construction-Public Printer-Comptroller of the Treasury-Attorney- the more specific provision should govern; and this is espe- Section 90 of the act gives you the right to call upon the Public Printer for such copies as you may require for official use of Government publications, "not to exceed, however, the number of bureaus in the Department and divisions in the office of the head thereof." The question arising upon this section is, whether the expense of these copies is to be charged to the appropriation for your Department or to the general fund for public printing. This is a question which may be asked of the Comptroller of the Treasury. (Act of July 31, 1894, chap. 174, sec. 8.) It belongs to a class of questions which require for their decision a special knowledge of our appropriation acts and the course of decisions thereunder. "They are questions which the Comptroller, by his great experience, is better qualified to pass upon, and it is desirable to avoid any possible conflict of precedents. Therefore it seems to me inadvisable for me to attempt to pass upon these inquiries." (21 Opin., 179.) Very respectfully, OPINIONS OF HON. JUDSON HARMON, OF OHIO, AND HON. JOSEPH MCKENNA, OF CALIFORNIA. CIVIL SERVICE-SECRET AGENTS. The confidential agents formerly employed in the free-delivery divi- DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge your communication of August 29, asking my opinion as to whether the confidential agents formerly employed in the free-delivery division of your Department, and designated secret agents, became classified employees of the departmental service within Rule III of the civil-service rules promulgated May 6, 1896. These agents were employed at the rate of $5 per diem and expenses under the general appropriation "for freedelivery service" for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1896. (Post-Office appropriation act of February 28, 1895, ch. 140; 28 Stat., 691.) This rule includes in the departmental service all employees of whatever designation, "however or for whatever purpose employed, whether compensated by a fixed salary or otherwise, who are serving in or on detail from the several executive departments, commissions, and offices in the District of Columbia." 10892-VOL 21, PT 3-1 407 Arrears of Pension-Statutory Construction. This clause does not cover all of the employees of your Department, as is shown, among other things, by the fact that the Railway Mail Service is separately mentioned. I think that it covers only those who are to be regarded as appointed for service in the departments at the seat of Government (whether for the time being actually employed there or detailed for service elsewhere), as distinguished from those appointed for service in the States or Territories, or, as in the case of the Railway Mail Service, in the country at large. I think that these secret agents, like the employees of the Railway Mail Service, must be regarded as appointed for the country at large; as I understand their occupation to have been a roving one, inspecting the letter-carrier service in different parts of the country, and not having any special relation to the service in the District of Columbia. Otherwise the question might be raised whether their appointment did not conflict with the act of August 5, 1882, chapter 389, section 4. I am therefore of the opinion that these agents were not classified under the present civil-service rules. Very respectfully, The POSTMASTER-GENERAL. JUDSON HARMON. ARREARS OF PENSION-STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION. The provision of section 4724 of the Revised Statutes "that no person in the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps, shall be allowed to draw both a pension as an invalid and the pay of his rank or station in the service" is not applicable to an officer upon the retired list. If a statute is ambiguous, a long-established construction thereof by the department charged with its execution, if continuous and consistent, will be regarded as conclusive. Under the pension appropriation acts of 1890 and 1891 no pension moneys can be drawn by retired officers of the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps after August 29, 1890, but these two statutes are not to be given a retrospective effect so as to cut off arrears already due. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge your communication of September 4, relating to the opinion previously asked Arrears of Pension Statutory Construction. with relation to the claim of Col. John Pulford, formerly of the Fifth Michigan Volunteer Infantry, for certain arrears of pension. It appears that Colonel Pulford, while in the volunteer service during the rebellion, received two severe gunshot wounds, on July 1, 1862, and May 5, 1864, respectively; that on account of these wounds he was placed upon the pension list June 15, 1866, his pension dating from July 17, 1865; that on February 23, 1866, he was appointed second lieutenant in the Regular Army; that he has received his pension from July 17, 1865, to February 23, 1866; that he did not thereafter claim further pension payments until very recently, apparently believing that he was disqualified from receiving them by reason of section 4724 of the Revised Statutes; that he was retired from active service on December 15, 1870, and that this retirement was based upon a medical examination which proved that he was incapacitated for active service through the result of the wounds for which he had theretofore been pensioned. It is not questioned by anybody that during his service in the Regular Army from 1866 to 1870 Colonel Pulford was disqualified from drawing any invalid pension by reason of the final proviso to the pension appropriation act of April 30, 1844, chapter 15, which is as follows: "That no person in the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps shall be allowed to draw both a pension as an invalid and the pay of his rank or station in the service, unless the alleged disability for which the pension was granted be such as to have occasioned his employment in a lower grade or in some civil branch of the service." This section was thereafter reenacted as section 4724 of the Revised Statutes. The first question presented by Colonel Pulford's application is whether this statutory provision was applicable to an officer upon the retired list, as he seems then to have supposed. The Assistant Secretary of the Interior decided this question in the affirmative, and for this reason, among others, has held that the present claim has properly been rejected; but upon a motion for a reconsideration, you have asked me to review his decision. Upon the |