A large audience assembled in Sever 11 last evening to hear a discussion of the question, Resolved, "That President Cleveland's course in the pension vetoes is to be approved."

Mr. E. A. Harriman delivered the opening speech on the affirmative. Mr. Cleveland is entirely right, said he, in persisting in his steady opposition to the extravagant pension grants of our national Congress. We are liberal enough with our pensions already. Had the Dependent Pension bill become a law, it would have taken at least $50,000,000 out of the national treasury, and increased our total pension list to over one hundred millions. We should have been taxed as heavily for this purpose as are many of the countries of Europe which have to support large standing armies. Many of our most prominent military men have declared their approval of Mr. Cleveland's cause in vetoing this measure, and numerous Grand Army posts have voted resolutions to the same effect. These are strong arguments in favor of the justice of the veto.

Mr. Reisner, on the negative, denied that the Dependent Pension bill would have involved an expenditure of $50,000,000 a year, for this would signify that there are now 300,000 Union soldiers who have sunk to the level of pauperism. It is at least as just as the Act of Congress which granted extravagant pensions to the surviving veterans of the Mexican war. It is important for us to remember that the soldiers which the Dependent Pension hill was designed to aid, have to be supported anyhow; it is merely a question whether it shall be done by our local authorities, or by the national government which those men fought to rescue and preserve.

Mr. Robert Treat Paine followed for the affirmative. It is charged against Cleveland, said he, that he is inconsistent in the matter of the pension vetoes; but so is Mr. Gladstone, who is about to confer a great blessing on the British Empire by his inconsistency! Mr. Paine then discussed the wisdom of Mr. Cleveland's vetoes of private pension bills. He declared that these bills are a most striking example of injudicious charity. It is a most extravagant waste of the nation's money, which should be reserved for more appropriate purposes.

Mr. Mahany, who closed for the negative, maintained that the Dependent Pension bill would not have encouraged pauperism, but would have saved many of our soldiers from the disgrace of becoming paupers. Mr. Mahany then read extracts from the bill, and also from President Cleveland's message to Congress, by which the speaker showed the absolute identity between the recommendations of the message and the provisions of the bill. He further discussed the question in the three relations of economy, consistency and national honor, and demonstrated that on each ground the President should have signed the bill. He closed with an eloquent and stirring appeal in behalf of the aged and helpless soldiers of the civil war.

On the merits of the question the vote stood: Aff. 31. neg. 15; on the skill of principal disputants, aff. 20, neg. 49; on the debate us a whole, aff. 10, neg. 19.