In the years following 1890, the growth of knit goods was quite phenomenal, over 100 per cent, yet with all this growth it was most remarkable that the amount of wool consumed increased less than one-fourth as fast. The gain was made possible only by the increased use of cotton, the consumption of which rose over 300 per cent during the succeeding 15 years (p. 294).

The most dangerous rival of wool is cotton (p. 296).

The higher the tariff raises the price of wool, the greater the extent to which other fibres are substituted for it (p. 326).

The use of cotton in the manufactures of wool is increasing faster than wool itself. The increased duty raised the price of wool and resulted in its decreased consumption per capita (p. 297.)

In 1896 we imported $53,000,000 worth of wool. This was during Cleveland's administration. The law restoring the tariff on wool was passed in 1897, soon after McKinley's election. As a result of it, we only imported in 1898 wool to the value of fifteen millions, and in 1899 to the value of fourteen millions, and in 1907, although our population was largely increased, only to the value of twentytwo millions (see p. 342).

From the Chicago Tribune I quote the following:

It will be a pleasing task to give the men, women and children of this country cheaper and better clothing. The high duties on wool, coupled with the excessive compensatory duties on woolen goods, have been a curse to the people. They have had to array themselves in garments made of shoddy and cotton, which had neither warmth nor durability.

From the Wall Street Journal I take the following:

It will be seen that the high tariff on wool has helped to drive the consumer to substitute articles wholly or in part made of cotton.

From the Literary Digest of April 29, 1911, I take the following precious morsel, which ought to be particularly interesting to those cotton raisers who are voting the Democratic ticket. The editor, in discussing the cut in the wool tariff, and summing up the opinions of the newspapers in regard to it, says:

Our people are now wearing cotton and shoddy where they should be wearing wool, say the critics of the woolen tariff, and the Democrats proclaim that the cut will clothe the shivering poor and check the ravages of pneumonia.

In the same issue of the Digest is given a quotation from the Fort Worth Record, as follows:

Woolen goods are just as much necessaries of life as bread and meat, yet the tariff has made those articles so costly to the people that they are well-nigh in the cate gory of luxuries.

Hon. Clarence Ousley, who is editor of the Record, recently went to New Orleans and joined with a number of other gentlemen in urging that a trust be formed in the South to hold cotton and to decrease its production in order to increase its price. He does not seem to have recognized that perhaps the best way to increase the price of any commodity is to increase the uses to which it may be put, and that the quickest way to reduce the price is to cease to use it. The idea of reducing the production of cotton in the South is absolute folly. It is going to increase. More land is going into cultivation and more people are going to engage in the business of raising it. Twenty years from now we will be producing 20,000,000 bales per annum. What sensible southern men should endeavor to do is to increase its consumption.

If the tariff on wool is removed, wool will again come to this country from abroad, as it came in Cleveland's last term. It can be pro

duced in many countries of the world under practically the same conditions that it was produced in the days of Abraham. In those countries most of the pasturage is still free, and a negro who can live on bananas or bread fruit and who can be hired at 15 cents a day ran take care of 2,000 sheep. The amount of wool which can thus be produced is only limited by the demand for it. If the demand is increased, the herds can be increased and much more wool speedily produced.

Mr. Ousley, in his estimates at New Orleans, stated that it costs. about 16 cents per pound to produce a pound of cotton. I do not agree with him in this statement, because I have raised a good deal of cotton myself, but I do say that the cotton farmers of the South can not successfully compete against 7 cent wool. Our crop this year is about 13,000,000 bales of cotton. If the United States should cease to use the 3,335,000 bales of cotton which it is now using largely because of a wool tariff, where will that surplus be consumed? What will be the effect of its nonconsumption upon the cotton market? A 10,000,000-bale crop will then create a larger surplus than a 13,000,000-bale crop creates now.

These are questions that ought to be earnestly considered by the southern farmer. He is doing everything he can to remove the tariff on wool or to reduce it so low that it will not protect the cotton which he raises. He is voting constantly directly against his own interests. Practically every Member of Congress from the South is doing his utmost to reduce the tariff on wool, and thereby reduce the price of the South's own and chief production. Perhaps some one will answer this by saying that the people of the South are opposed to the tariff on principle, regardless of whether it hurts them or helps them. To this I answer that a people whose governors gather together to form a trust to increase the price of the commodity which they have to sell, while condemning in bitter terms all others who form trusts to increase the price of what they have to buy, are not particularly worrying about abstract principles when discussing questions of bread

and meat.

THOMAS O. MARVIN, SECRETARY OF THE HOME MARKET CLUB, BOSTON, MASS.

WASHINGTON, D. C., May 27, 1913.

Hon. F. McL. SIMMONS,
Chairman Finance Committee,

United States Senate, Washington, D. C.

SIR: Kindly permit me to submit for the consideration of the committee the following brief summary of the findings of the Tariff Board's investigation of cotton manufactures, and a few comments suggested thereby:

In the cost of raw material there is practically no advantage possessed by either country.

In the matter of spinning the comparison is made between mule spinning which is the prevalent custom in England and ring spinning which is the customary method in the United States. Mule spinning is as a rule a more expensive process but it produces yarn of a somewhat higher quality.

Therefore in comparing the English and American costs of spir ning it should be noticed that they employ in England a more exper sive method and that they could reduce the cost of spinning h adopting, if it became necessary to maintain their advantage, th less expensive ring spinning method employed in the United State Comparing the most efficient English mill and the most efficier American mill the board found that the cost of spinning yarn i England averaged seven-eighths of the cost in the United States. In other words, the labor cost that would amount to $1 for spinnin yarn in the United States would cost $0.87 in England. Thes figures relate only to the lower number of yarns, for the repor distinctly says

*

that these relative costs do not include yarns of the higher counts * since th board was not able to secure sufficiently detailed figures on the higher counts abros The report then submits findings in regard to the lower counts yarn only, for the board plainly states that it was

not able to secure sufficiently detailed figures on the higher counts abroad (p. 9).

COST OF WEAVING.

The report says (p. 11) that

in the matter of turning yarn into woven fabrics the board was unable to secure suc detailed foreign-cost figures as in the case of spinning.

It is true that the number of looms tended per weaver is greater i the United States than in England, but it is also true that the Englis looms run somewhat faster than the looms in this country.

In England a weaver on plain looms usually tends four looms; i this country six and frequently eight, and occasionally even more, the loom is equipped with "warp stop motions."

The English weaver is fully capable of tending as many looms a our weavers, but the labor unions forbid this in order that there ma be more employment for labor. So far this restriction in the numbe of looms which an English weaver is allowed to tend has not worke any particular hardship to British manufacturers, for they are sti able to compete successfully with this and other cotton-manufacturin countries and dispose in foreign markets of 80 per cent of thei production.

Whenever this regulation enforced by the labor unions become detrimental to England's cotton industry it can be changed, and i will be changed, and the disadvantages under which English manu facturers operate will be removed.

When we compare automatic looms, which are largely used in thi country in the making of medium and coarse fabrics, with the plai looms commonly used in England, our advantage is more marked for a weaver can tend easily 20 automatic looms, and sometimes a expert can tend 28.

But here, too, is an advantage which can not be considered as per manent, for, using the plain looms, England is able to produce th medium and coarse fabrics as cheaply as we can on automatic looms and when England utilizes more generally the automatic loom we wil be wholly unable to meet her cost of production without a great reduc tion in wages.

Already England is beginning to use the automatic looms and it is most unwise to base our cotton duties on the difference in the cost of production which is based on a temporary difference in methods of weaving.

In fact, competition is so keen now in cotton manufacturing that the American manufacturers have been compelled to invent and adopt labor-saving devices and substitute machinery for human labor in order to live at all. When England needs to do so she will adopt the same labor-saving machinery and will greatly increase her power to compete with us.

LARGER INVESTMENT IN AMERICAN MILLS.

The cost of an automatic loom is twice as much as the cost of a plain loom, and the investment in looms by American mills is over twice as much as the investment required in England.

The Tariff Board distinctly states that

the method of determining costs adopted by the board does not include the item of interest. So a mere comparison of weaving costs does not fairly represent the difference in the cost of producing cotton cloth in the two countries.

Moreover, since the Tariff Board's report, wages in this country have been increased 15 per cent and hours of labor, in Massachusetts mills, have been reduced from 58 a week to 54. This reduction in the hours of labor alone increases the cost of production at least 21 per cent.

Not only is the cost of automatic looms greater than the cost of plain looms but the entire cost of a plant is greater here than abroad. From the Tariff Board's summary

it appears that the cost of erecting a building is about 40 per cent greater in this country than in England, the cost of equipment for a spinning mill about 70 per cent higher, and the cost of equipment for a weaving plant (with plain looms in both countries) about 50 per cent higher. Where a mill is equipped with automatic looms as is commonly the case in this country) the cost of the looms is at least two and a half times the cost for a mill equipped with plain looms.

These additional expenses of the American mills are not included in the Tariff Board's estimate of comparative costs, because their costs relate merely to separate and specific processes of manufacture, like the spinning process, the weaving process, the finishing process. On some features of the process of spinning or weaving or finishing, we may have an advantage, on other features of the same process England has an advantage, but when all of the elements which enter into the cost of production are considered, our incidental advantages disappear and England's advantage over us increases.

Under the present tariff rates of the Payne-Aldrich law importations of yarns amount annually to $4,000,000 and over.

Seventy-eight two-ply yarns with a duty of 193 cents a pound, equivalent to 35.71 per cent, were imported in 1910 to the amount of over 900,000 pounds, including the mercerized yarns of the same count. On these yarns alone a duty of over $180,000 was collected. In fact, importations of that particular number exceeded domestic production by over 200,000 pounds.

Some of the large selling houses import yarns above number 80's because they can import them cheaper under our present duties of 35

to 40 per cent than they can make them in the American mills which they control or in which they have an interest.

And yet the proposition to indorse the House bill would force u to approve duties on these yarns of only 20 and 25 per cent, which would absolutely annihilate the fine-yarn industry of this country.

In the production of the finer cotton cloths automatic looms ar not generally used; in fact, they are employed but little on finer good than 40's. In New Bedford, the seat of the fine goods manufactured in this country, only 10 per cent of the looms are automatic and 9 per cent are plain looms.

The fine cloths require much more care, skill, and labor in thei manufacture. Rates based on the difference in the cost of weaving on plain and automatic looms would force the New Bedford mills ou of business, because 90 per cent of their looms are plain and only 1 per cent automatic.

The rates of H. R. 3321 would compel the abandonment of th manufacture in the United States of fine yarns and fine cloths and force all of our mills which tried to struggle along into the production of medium and coarse goods, a field which is already overcrowded, an the result would be the closing of many mills, the discharge of many workmen, lower wages, and a state of demoralization in the industry

WHY SO FEW AUTOMATIC LOOMS ARE USED IN ENGLAND.

Several reasons are advanced for the delay in the more genera adoption of the automatic loom in England. For one thing, the auto matic loom costs about two and a half times the ordinary plain loom and this has deterred many English mills already equipped with plain looms from adopting them. Again, English mills do not ru such a large number of looms on a single standard fabric as d American mills, and the automatic loom has not been found so suitabl as plain looms for the varied Lancashire trade in dhoties and othe fancies. Furthermore, the automatic loom requires stronger and better warp yarn than the plain loom, for the breakage of a singl warp thread stops the loom. The American mills use strong ring spun warp yarns; while a large portion of the English mills, producing mainly for the poorer classes of the Orient and other regions, have t size heavily to make goods cheap enough, and they ordinarily use much lower grade of yarn than would American mills for fabrics tha pass under the same trade name. The warp yarns used in the bull of English cloths are mule spun; and since they are soft twisted t enable them to take up a larger amount of sizing and to give th required feel to the cloth, they are not so suited to the automatic loou as are the stronger American yarns.

An additional reason for the limited use of the automatic loom appears to be the objection to them of the labor unions, which hav been afraid that they would be used to displace labor and to throw more work on the weaver without proportionately increasing hi earnings. (P. 495, Vol. II, Tariff Board's Report.)

WAGES.

Table 210, page 664, of the Tariff Board's report, shows that the hourly earnings of weavers in the northern United States are 55.5 pe cent higher for males and 78.6 per cent higher for females than the earnings of weavers in England.