tariff bill at this time, for he had been the head of a sub-committee which only a few months before had finished an important new measure for reforming the Administration of the Customs. This had already passed the Senate and at the time Allison and his colleagues took up revision, was before the Committee of Ways and Means. By way of emphasizing its sympathy with the protected as well as to show its disapproval of Mr. Mills’s attitude, the Senate Committee began hearings in May of 1888 which were continued at intervals until the first of the next year. They make four big volumes and altogether are an illuminating compilation for the student. Much more important than the hearings was a piece of work going on quietly at the same time at Senator Allison’s request: this was the actual preparation by an expert of a bill which was to serve as a guide and model to the Committee. The expert chosen was Colonel George C. Tichenor, a man who knew more about the administration of our customs and had more authoritative notions of what duties should be to meet a moderate protectionist program than anybody then living. Colonel Tichenor had first come into touch with the tariff in 1877 when he had been appointed by John Sherman, then Secretary of the Treasury, a special agent of the Department. Here he was so impressed with the importance of the question and possibly also with the rarity of men who really knew anything about it, that he determined to master all its intricacies. In 1881 he was sent abroad by the Secretary to study undervaluations and the cost of production. Colonel Tichenor spent some four years in different parts of Europe seriously examining various sides of the tariff question. His studies had led him to one conclusion which was of particular influence at the moment, and that was that specific duties should replace ad valorem wherever possible, the exact opposite to Mr. Mills’s conclusion. Colonel Tichenor believed the ad valorem duty more equitable, but that human ingenuity and dishonesty would always find ways of evading it, and that as a result both the honest importers and the government would suffer. It was to be expected that the administration should feel strongly about undervaluations and be ready to accept almost any system which promised to make them more difficult. The scandals arising from them had been flagrant for years. These undervaluations were by no means due alone to dishonest importers, they were due quite as much to dishonest and incompetent customs-house officials, to bungling and tricky schedules, and to a general belief in Europe that our tariffs _ought_ to be evaded.