Now if Mr. Aldrich believed that the rates on these particular cotton goods should be raised and complicated in this way, he was justified in raising them; but there has never been a time in the history of protection in this country when it was more imperative for a new and increased duty to be clearly explained. There was never a time when it was more necessary that all rates should be measured by the fundamental principles of protection. It was Mr. Aldrich’s business to prove to the Senate that the new rates were justifiable. But Mr. Aldrich made no attempt to do anything of the kind. On the contrary, when the charges were taken sharply to account by Senator Dolliver in an analysis which must stand as a model of the kind of criticism which every schedule in the tariff bill needs _from Protectionists_, Mr. Aldrich met him by asserting that the rates on cotton goods _had not been raised_. That all that had been done was to readjust duties in such a way as to restore the “_intent_” of the Dingley Bill, which, he said, had been largely destroyed by certain court decisions. It is easy to show how far from the fact Mr. Aldrich was in his statement. The fabrics which had been referred to the courts were few in number, including the goods known as etamine and Madras curtain goods. There had been no court decision whatever affecting the great bulk of plain cotton goods, white or colored; and yet the tables estimating duties which are to-day in use by one of the largest and most respected importing houses in this country show that the increase in duties on colored cotton cloths of from 100 to 150 threads per square inch are all the way from about 2 to 42 per cent, and as usually happens the 2 per cent increase is on the _highest priced_ goods. If these same goods were mercerized, the increase in duties is from about 12 to 56 per cent. In the next higher grade of fineness (over 150 and not over 200 threads) the duties have increased from 2 to 24 per cent—if mercerized, from 14 to 38 per cent. White goods of the ordinary weaves of the same grades of fineness as those above have like increases. Not one of these cloths _was touched or could be touched by the court decisions Mr. Aldrich hid behind_.