If we only had more Professor Taussigs and more little volumes like his "State Papers and Speeches on the Tariff," how much easier study would become and how much more general would be the interest and the knowledge shown in important questions of state. What Professor Taussig has done is to resurrect from the Congressional Documents and from other sources equally inaccessible to the ordinary reader, a few of the most famous and valuable papers written by our earlier statesmen on the subject of the tariff. These papers, as he says, "are now reprinted in the hope that more easy access to them will be of service to teachers and students of economics, and will bring to the attention of thoughtful citizens serious and sober arguments removed from the heat of contemporary discussion."

The collection contains five documents; 1 Alexander Hamilton's Report on Manufactures, 1790, "the strongest presentation of the case for protection which has been made by any American statesman;" 2. Gallatin's Memorial of the Free Trade Convention, 1832, a sober and stately public document, and in manner and matter a model of what a discussion of the tariff question should be; 3. Walker's Treasury Report of 1845, which after giving the figures of the Treasury, discusses the tariff and presents the case against protection; 4 and 5. Speeches on the tariff in the House of Representatives in 1824 by Clay and Webster.

Although there is much in these arguments which would not strictly apply to the altered conditions of today, yet the documents are valuable to show the historical growth of the tariff question, and what is of even more service, they represent the opinions of sober, hard thinking statesmen, who outside the pale of polities, were working for the best economic interests of the nation.

The book is published by the University and is now on sale at the Co-operative.