AMERICAN CONVERSION COSTS OF WORSTED YARNS.

The following table gives the actual American conversion cost of making single worsted yarns delivered on spinning bobbins, the additional conversion cost for the two-ply yarns, and the total conversion cost of two-ply worsted yarns delivered in skeins, the conversion cost being only that in the spinning mill and not including the cost of making tops:

It will be seen at once that the additional conversion cost beyond the single yarn for each count is more than 50 per cent of the conversion cost in the single state, and that an added duty is needed on yarn so advanced in processes and costs as compared with the rate on single yarn.

COMPARISON OF AMERICAN AND ENGLISH CONVERSION COSTS.

Let us, however, consider the question from a different point of view and compare the American conversion cost, the English conversion cost and the duty on the same, as proposed by the Underwood bill. Taking the American cost from the preceding table and assuming the English costs are one-half the American, we have:

The above table shows that if the flat rate of 20 per cent ad valorem proposed in H. R. 3321 is right for single yarns it can not be right for two-ply yarns, and that, as a matter of fact, the domestic manufacturer would be seriously handicapped by such a flat rate, and the greater the conversion cost the more serious his situation would be, I believe that these tables show clearly the need of additional and graded rates if all spinners are to be put on a fair and equitable basis. The constantly increasing conversion cost as the numbers

grow finer, and the fact that this conversion cost increases twice as fast in this country as in England, make plain the necessity for a difference in the rate to take care of this increasing difference in conversion costs.

Permit me also to call to your attention the fact that the rate of 20 per cent in the bill before you involves a reduction from the act of 1894 of 33 per cent on yarns valued at not more than 40 cents per pound and a reduction of 50 per cent on yarns valued at more than 40 cents per pound. It would seem self-evident that such a reduction would mean disaster, if not ruin, and is far beyond what should be reasonably necessary to stimulate- increased efficiency in home manufacture. Destruction is certainly not stimulation.

WORSTED CLOTHS, ETC.
CLOTE

The same principle of relatively greater increase in conversion costs applies equally to the cost of finished cloth or other goods; but I shall content myself with stating most emphatically that even the adoption of the rates of the act of 1894 will surely result in the American manufacturers being forced to give up the manufacture of many classes of goods, thereby leaving the market for such goods exclusively to the foreigner. This will inevitably be true as to light-weight fabrics, in which the cost of conversion is so much higher relatively than the cost of material as to require a rate of duty in excess of 50 per cent. To illustrate this, I beg leave to call to your attention an actual specific cloth which has recently come to my knowledge.

A fabric weighing 14 ounces to the square yard has been imported into this country in large quantities under existing rates. The American and foreign costs are as follows:

This is an example of a real and not an imaginary cloth. It represents an extreme case, however, in being a cloth in which the conversion cost is relatively very high, and one which can not probably be made in this country to advantage. I do not, therefore, put it before your committee with the slightest idea of suggesting it as a basis for fixing a rate of duty, but merely for the purpose of showing that a reduction of rates beyond those fixed in the act of 1894 is unnecessary in order to permit the importation of foreign goods which can not be made in this country except at too great a relative disadvantage. It also illustrates the impossibility of the home manufacturer competing with the foreigner under the rates established in 1894 and still less under the rates proposed in H. R. 3321 on goods in which the conversion cost is relatively high.

You will perhaps understand the extreme difficulty of obtaining authentic information as to the details of foreign costs which are so

jealously guarded. I have endeavored to furnish you with such information as I have been able to. The most available source for obtaining authentic information as to foreign imports is the declarations of value by importers to our customs department.

Hoping to obtain information as to goods which are actually being imported which might enable me to furnish to your committee some comparison between the costs of such fabrics and similar ones of home manufacture, I obtained a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury from the chairman of your subcommittee on wool manufactures. The Secretary of the Treasury stated that the prices of such goods were confidential under an administrative ruling of his department (which, it is fair to say, had been made by his predecessors), so that I have been unable to obtain them. In my opinion a law should be enacted whereby such information may be available for use through the Bureau of Manufactures or some other department of our Government, in like manner as it has been deemed fair and equitable to have that bureau collect data as to costs and prices of domestic manufactures. Your committee has sent out a sheet of "Interrogatories propounded to manufacturers" requesting the most intimate detailed information as to their manufactures, to be given under oath and to be printed in such manner as to become to all intents and purposes a public document; and also requesting information as to foreign costs of similar articles. Permit me to suggest that considerable information as to foreign manufactures can be obtained from the source suggested, and no reason suggests itself to me why such information should not be used as well as that obtained from our own home manufacturers.

In conclusion, let me reaffirm my oral recommendation to you through your subcommittee that the rates of the Wilson Act of 1894 be reenacted. While I believe those rates to be too low, particularly on goods weighing under 4 ounces, as shown by the increase in importations in such light weight goods under that Act, yet I am willing as stated to you orally, to take my share of the risks which will result therefrom. Conditions were unfavorable for the enactment of the Wilson bill and are more favorable now. How much more favorable. no one can tell until the new rates are actually in operation.

WILLIAM WHITMAN.

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS,

Suffolk, ss:

BOSTON, June 4, 1913.

Then personally appeared William Whitman known to me and known to me to be the person who subscribed the foregoing statement and made oath that the said statement by him subscribed was true to the best of his knowledge and belief.

Before me,

C. EATON PIERCE, Notary Public.

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

WAGES IN ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES.

Comparative list of wages paid in Bradford, England, and United States on Mar. 1, 1913, in mills owned by Joseph Benn & Sons Co., spinners, and manufacturers of mohair and alpaca, and making identically the same classes of goods on the same kind of machinery running at the same speed in both countries.

[The hours of labor in England are 55 and in the United States 56 per week. We have taken 1 halfpenny to equal 1 cent.]

Comparative costs of mohair and alpaca cloths manufactured in the Uuitad States and in

England.

Cost per yard of cloth made in United States under the new Underwood bill of 20 per cent ad valorem duty on raw mohair and alpaca....

Cost of imported cloths under the

new Underwood bill paying a

28.0 32.5 36.5 42.7 69.2 46.9 78.2 37.0 33.7 39.0 45.0 31.2 337

duty of 40 per cent ad valorem.. 24.5 28.3 32.3 37.4 59.9 41.1 69.0 31.6 29.4 34.1 40.2 27.3 35.5 Advantage to importer over United States manufacturer, per cent.

Cost of cloths made in United States under free raw mohair and alpaca..

Cost of imported cloths paying 35 per cent duty ad valorem as per new Underwood bill.. Advantage to importer over United States manufacturer, per cent.

12.5 12.9 11.5 12.4 13.4 12.2 11.8 14.6 12.8 12.6 10.7 12.5 10.6

12.2 12.2 12.1 12.0 12.3 12.7 11.0 13.6 10.1 12.0 9.3 12.0 7.3

26.2 30.2 34.6 40.0 64.1 44.0 73.9 33.9 31.4 36.5 43.0 29.2 38.0

Cost of imported cloths paying 50 per cent duty ad valorem.. Cost of imported cloths paying 55 per cent duty ad valorem.. Cost of imported cloths paying 60 per cent duty ad valorem.. Percentage of duties paid on imported cloths under the PayneAldrich bill..........per cent.. 99.0 87.3 83.3 79.6 86.5 103.0 83.2 83.8 91.1 93.1 77.8 88.8 80.

27.0 31.2 35.7 41.3 66.2 45.4 76.3 34.9 32.5 37.7 44.4 30.1 39.1

27.9 32.2 36.8 42.6 68.3 46.9 78.7 36.0 33.4 38.9 45.8 31.0 40.5

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF WOOL MANUFACTURERS, 683 ATLANTIC AVENUE, BOSTON, MASS., BY JOHN P. WOOD, PRESIDENT, AND WINTHROP L. MARVIN, SECRETARY.

BOSTON, MASS., May 9, 1913.

Hon. WILLIAM J. STONE,

Committee on Finance,

Subcommittee on the Woolen Schedule,

United States Senate, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: We wish to enter our earnest protest against the woolen schedule of the Underwood tariff bill, for the following reasons: First. The proposed rates of duty are, on the whole, inadequate, and their adoption would be a menace not only to the prosperity but to the existence of the woolen manufacturers in the United States.

Second. The proposed duties on the products of manufacture at their different stages from tops to finished cloth do not give proper consideration to the relative differences in the costs and values of those different products.

Third. The provision of a single ad valorem rate each for tops, yarns, cloths, and dress goods is a perilous expedient, calculated to destroy important parts of the industry and to deprive the Govern ment of proper revenue. A tariff made up wholly on the ad valorem basis is contrary to the practice of the modern world, and has always been deprecated by most of the wisest of American statesmen.

Fourth. The duty proposed on finished goods-35 per cent ad valorem-is far below the 40 and 50 per cent of the Gorman-Wilson tariff law of 1894, which proved disastrous to this as to other Ameri