Tariff Schedules

per pound for mercerizing yarns and from 1 to 4 cents per yard for mercerizing cloth, which has to be added to the price at which we sell our products in competition with foreign countries.

S. B. CHASE, Chairman New England Committee.

F. B. GORDON, COLUMBUS, GA., PRESIDENT COTTON MANUFACTURERS' ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA.

[Representing 160 cloth, yarn, and knitting mills capitalized at $36,915,000; also president of Columbus Manufacturing Co., 65,000 spindles, 1,720 looms, making 4-yard sheetings.]

To Senator Charles F. Johnson, chairman, and Senators Hoke Smith and Hughes, Senate Subcommittee on Finance, Washington, D. C. GENTLEMEN: At the present time there are actively at work in the State of Georgia the following textile plants: One hundred and thirty cloth and yarn mills, capitalized at $34,621,000; 26 knit-goods manufacturers, capitalized at $1,794,CCO; 4 woolen mills, capitalized at $500,000; a total capitalization of $36,915,000. Total number of textile plants, 160.

The only brief I wish to submit for the Cotton Manufacturers' Association of Georgia is embodied in the following resolution, unanimously passed by the association in annual convention assembled at Columbus, Ga., May 9, 1913, as follows:

Whereas this association has always favored a proper revision of the tariff on cotton yarns and fabrics.

Resolved, That in our judgment the reduction of duties on cotton yarns and fabrics proposed by the Underwood tariff bill, now before Congress, if passed, is too drastic, and will cripple our industry, particularly on plied, combed, or finished yarns, also fabrics bleached, dyed, mercerized, and fancy weaves, and those composed of plied yarns, which should have an additional duty over plain cloths in the gray.

We believe the duties proposed by the American Cotton Manufacturers' Association are the lowest that will properly sustain our mills and maintain reasonable rates of labor, for the reason that the items mentioned above are practically all labor and machinery propositions, and the finding of the Tariff Board is that labor and machinery are over 40 per cent higher in America than in England and the Continent.

Considering these facts, we earnestly request the President of the United States, the United States Senate, and the House of Representatives to see that the Underwood bill is amended along these lines, so that justice will be done our stockholders, our aborers, and our country.

Effect of Underwood tariff bill on southern export sheetings. A number of the most important cotton mills in Georgia and the Carolinas make gray goods, which are largely exported to China and other foreign countries. These are known to the trade es brown sheetings and drills, the sheetings weighing 2853 yards to the pound.

In the tariff discussions and hearings little has been said as to the effect of pending legislation on the export business of southern mills. Granted that the effect of the proposed duties on these goods will not be felt as quickly and directly as will the rates proposed on cloths made of higher count yarns, yet the fact that it is supposed that this export business on coarse sheetings will be immune from the generally disastrous effects of the proposed rates will be the very reason why many mills on finer goods will turn to the manufacture of the heavier goods as a possible solution of unprofitable business from European competition on the higher classes of cloth.

This will surely lead to overproduction, the most deadly blight that can afflict any manufacturing industry. It is of the utmost impor

tance in this connection to realize that in the cotton-mill business there is absolutely no control of prices in any way, shape, or form. Whenever overproduction occurs, the price is made and the market is fixed by the weak mill or the timid holder, and it is then a scramble to get rid of goods without a loss if possible. No mill center in the South has rejoiced over the building of the Panama Canal more than has Columbus, Ga., situated at the head of navigation of the Chattahoochee River, with direct water connections via the canal to the Orient.

The Columbus Manufacturing Co. is a typical southern mill on brown sheetings and has been shipping these goods to China for the last 10 years. At present they are routed to Shanghai via Vancouver, British Columbia, at a rate of $1.20 per hundredweight, of which rate the railroads get $1 and the steamship for a haul of greater distance gets 20 cents. On this basis it is estimated that sheetings loaded at the wharf in Columbus can be routed to Shanghai for a rate of not over 50 cents per hundredweight, all-water route. Is there a resident of Columbus or a resident of Georgia or a Representative in Congress from Georgia whose patriotic blood will not be stirred when he realizes the significance of this important business possibility to a Georgia city? Columbus, Ga., with her 12 cotton mills and knitting mills, will thus be put on the international cotten-mill map. But of what avail will be the Panama Canal to Georgia mills if its great benefit is to be nullified by such tariff rates as will prevent those mills from prospering and thus using the canal to advantage? Cripple the Columbus mills and you cripple Muscogee County and every farmer located therein. Cripple Muscogee County and you cripple the State of Georgia, reduce her revenue from taxes and cut down her appropriation for schools and every other beneficent cause. Cripple Georgia and you cripple the South, the "Nation's greatest asset.

The writer has always been and is now an advocate of "tarif for revenue only." He has believed the assurances of the Baltimore platform and the statements of the leaders of the present administration that the reduction in duties would be gradually brought about without injury to any legitimate industry, and he appeals to the Democratic Senators of the South to make glorious history by safeguarding at this critical moment the very heart, soul, and body of the commercial South. Don't listen to political sentiment; listen to common sense, every-day facts. Who appeals to you? Every southern lad with a cotton hoe in his hand, every southern boy attending an agricultural college, every crossroads cotton gin, every southern community which by pop lar subscription has built a 5,000 or 10,000 spindle yarn mill, to which has been subscribed the hard earnings of the neighboring farmers and the widows of the county looking for a safe investment.

Will you, blinded by the glare of a magnificent political victory, give your own God-favored section a commercial deathblow?

The commercial papers are quoting editorial opinions as to the attitude of the cotton manufacturers of England and the Continent. They are gloating over the prospect. Cotton can be shipped from Houston, Tex., to Liverpool as cheaply as to the Carolinas. In England, with a superabundance of low-priced Angle-Saxon labor and centuries of specializing in cotton manufacturing, where immens mills are being run on one number of yarn only, they will light bonfires to the pending tariff bill unless same is modified to a competitiv

basis.

Par. 256.-SPOOL THREAD.

THE JOHN M'GREGOR CO., BY RODERICK J. M'GREGOR, PRESIDENT,
LINCOLN, ME.

PROPOSED TARIFF ON SPOOL COTTON.

Hon. CHARLES F. JOHNSON,

Washington, D. C.

SOUTH

SOUTH LINCOLN, ME., April 26, 1913.

DEAR SIR: We are particularly interested in the sections of the Underwood tariff bill pertaining to duty on spool cotton now under consideration, having been for the past 37 years manufacturing wood spools for cotton thread. We have always supplied the Clark Thread Co., of Newark, N. J., and at present have two plants, one at South Lincoln, and one at Foxcroft, Me., supplying about three-quarters of their stock. Our spool mills are, without doubt, the largest in this country. Maine has supplied almost the total amount of thread spools consumed in the United States, which spools are made of white. birch wood. No other wood can well be used for turning into spools. New Hampshire to a very much smaller extent than Maine has been furnishing spools.

The profits to-day in our business are very small, and any reduction in the tariff, as proposed, from about 40 per cent to 15 per cent on 200-yard cotton, such as is universally used, would, it seems to us, result very disastrously to all spool manufacturers in Maine. Furthermore, the Underwood bill would put a duty of 20 to 25 per cent upon fine yarns from which spool cotton is made, thus taxing the raw material at a higher rate than the finished article.

If spool cotton can not be successfully manufactured in the United States, the spool mills will be likewise affected. There are very large thread mills in Scotland and England, some in Belgium, Ireland, and Germany; also large quantities of white birch in the Provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick on this side, and in Finland and Sweden. on the other.

We believe we are voicing the sentiment of the other manufacturers of Maine, who in different processes of manufacture give employment to many hundred people, in objecting to the proposed tariff. The other larger spool manufacturers are: American Thread Co., Milo and Lake View; N. S. Stowell Spool & Wood Turning Co., Dixfield; E. L. Tibbetts Spool Co., Lockes Mills; Dearborn Spool Co., Bryants Pond; J. P. Skillings, Bethel; Elliot & Bartlett Co., East Stoneham; and International Manufacturing Co., Phillips.

We respectfully ask your consideration of this matter, and, if you can see conditions in the same light, ask that you use your influence and vote against the passage of the section referred to.

W. WARREN THREAD WORKS, PER CHARLES B. WARREN, PRESIDENT, WESTFIELD, MASS.

WESTFIELD, MASS., May 13, 1913.

Hon. F. L. SIMMONS,

United States Senator, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: In addition to the brief which has been submitted to the Ways and Means Committee of the House, I beg to offer for your consideration the following comparisons: Out of the 295 different qualities and brands of thread, the selling price abroad was 16.8 cents; selling price, United States, 24.3 cents; difference, 7.5 cents; per cent, 46.

We find that the average rate of duty (23 per cent) as shown in the Ways and Means Committee Handbook is misleading concerning our industry, as the goods actually imported were composed principally of fancy items and not staple goods. If the thread imported had been used in this country, the average duty under the PayneAldrich tariff would have been between 60 and 80 per cent.

From any standpoint we find that the proposed duty is such a radical reduction that we can see nothing but a very serious condition ahead for our industry. Although supplies in this country range from 23 per cent to 64 per cent higher, construction and equipment from 32 per cent to 70 per cent higher, we believe that we could contend with foreign competition if it were not for the wide difference in labor costs, which we have shown in our brief to be from 100 per cent to 400 per cent higher in this country than in foreign countries.

Please note that the proposed bill covering cotton yarn gives a higher average duty than is placed upon spool cotton. This seems to us an inconsistency, as yarn is the raw material from which our product is manufactured. We understand that there is a possibility of some change in the cotton-yarn schedule, and if it is not deemed advisable to grant the rate proposed in our brief we certainly trust that we may be allowed 10 per cent advance over the yarn schedule. This seems to us imperative, on account of the great amount of labor added to the yarn to make the same spool cotton.

If any further information is desired, kindly take the matter up with William H. Hall, chairman of the thread manufacturers' committee, South Willington, Conn.

Respectfully submitted.

W. WARREN THREAD WORKS,
CHAS. B. WARREN, President.

P. S.-Inclosed you will please find copy of the brief referred to above, including a few additional comparative rates of wages, under Schedule B.

(The additional rates of wages follow. For brief submitted to Committee on Ways and Means, see Hearings, p. 3324.)