artificially colored in order to reduce the grade below No. 13, Dutch Standard. They had also caused it to be invoiced at 88 degrees, but its actual strength was found to be from 96 to 98 degrees. The attempted fraud made a difference of $61,000 in the duty. The American Sugar Refinery was caught in this instance, but there is no doubt that tricks of this sort had been frequently successful. To take away the duty on these grades then would not only serve the poor, but it would also go far towards breaking up the monopoly. The independent refiners themselves had in the recent hearings advised this. “The remedy for the monopoly in sugar is in your hands absolutely,” one of the independents told the Ways and Means Committee; “that is by putting just so much duty and no more on refined sugar, that if we undertake to get more profit than we ought, England, Germany, and France can send in their refined sugars. The remedy is entirely with you and we expect you to apply it.” The way in which Mr. McKinley proposed to reach the abuses was to make all sugar below No. 16, Dutch Standard free. Here again the provision was not original. It had been in the first drafts of both the Mills and Allison Bills, but had been so strenuously fought by the sugar interests that it had been dropped in both cases. When this provision of the McKinley Bill reached the Senate it met the opposition of the same gentleman who had been most influential in raising the rates in the Allison Bill, Nelson W. Aldrich. Mr. Aldrich moved that Nos. 13 to 16 be made dutiable. Senators Sherman and Allison both fought him, but Aldrich carried the day. His power at that time, however, was not great enough to rule the conference to which the bill was finally submitted, and the original House arrangement was adopted and became the law.