trade we should give it a special duty. What Mr. Lodge did not say was that this process, in so far as it adds anything to the value of a cloth, was already provided for in the Dingley Bill. That under the protection there provided, it had become in some ten years firmly and successfully established in the United States. The latest textile directory gives a list of fifty-seven concerns which do some form of mercerizing. Some of these are on a large scale. When Mr. Lippitt appeared before the Ways and Means Committee one of the strong reasons he gave for not changing the Dingley duty was that under it the trade had been able to develop on artistic lines and to employ new processes, such as mercerization. He repeated that the Dingley duty was sufficient. Mr. Lodge’s speech would lead one to believe that we had been unable to mercerize goods, that it was an infant needing protection, whereas fifty-seven establishments announce that they do the work! Moreover, Mr. Lodge failed to prove that a cent a square yard was necessary to protect the process. As a matter of fact, it was shown by Senator Dolliver that the process costs nothing of the kind. Bills for mercerizing were shown in which the charge was but ⅛ of a cent a square yard. Other figures were quoted, but none higher than ¾ of a cent. It is probable that the process is actually cheaper here than in England or Germany, though we do not as yet do work of as high grade. All the evidence, indeed, leads one to believe that there was no sound protectionist defence of the extra duty on mercerized goods, that it was an abuse of power from start to finish. The duties on cotton cloth in the Payne-Aldrich Bill were adopted not for lack of ample information of their nature, but in spite of it. The members of the responsible committees, the members of Congress and the Administration, not only had the debates to guide them; they had laid before them repeatedly, by the Wholesale Dry Goods Association of New York, graphic “object lessons” of what the new rates would do. Discovering that Congress was unmoved by its showings, as a last resort the Association appealed to the President for a hearing. They believed that if they could prove to him the effect of the duties on common goods, he would not permit the wrong. But the President would not see them. It is probable that Mr. Taft, knowing that it was futile to oppose the cotton duties, spared himself the ordeal of having to say to gentlemen who had a just grievance, “I can do nothing for you.” It was what he had done in the case of the carded woollen men. And if Mr. Taft had offered any explanation of his inactivity, as he did in the case of the wool schedule, he would probably have said: