DEAR SIR: This is to certify that the Thief River Falls Lumber Company, a corporation of Thief River Falls, Minn., has—

Manufactured lumber

1906.

_feet_ 43, 605, 868

1907. 40,762, 150

The cost of manufacturing this lumber, including saw

ing, sawing supplies, oil, machine shop work, sorting, chain, hauling, piling, stacking, and yard sorting amounted to "

Sawmill repairs
Refuse

Total cost, including refuse and repairs. Cost for sorting logs and boom repairs_-_

2.086

.199

Shipping this lumber, including planing-mill repairs, planing supplies, and planing mill__.

.443

The shipments for 1906 averaged $20.16; for 1907, $21.10. During these two years, 1906 and 1907, the total cut averaged practically 25 per cent of low-grade boards and shorts, by low-grade boards meaning Nos. 4 and 5.

During the year 1907, which are the only figures I have before me, the Prince Albert Lumber Company (Ltd.), of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, which company has been in operation for three years past, manufactured 34,608,757 feet of lumber; the total cost of manufacture of which, as enumerated above, was $2.409. The shipping of this lumber cost $1.778.

The average price which we received for this lumber at Prince Albert was $21.66. Sales amounted to 25,737,205 feet.

R

Does not include cost of stumpage, logging, driving, etc., or cost of logs, which are practically higher in this locality than at most white-pine producing points.

I am, as you know, president of the Prince Albert Lumber Company (Ltd.), with a capacity of 50,000,000 feet; secretary of the Thief River Falls Lumber Company, of Thief River Falls, Minn., with a capacity of from 40,000,000 to 45,000,000 feet; president of the Bemidji Lumber Company, of Bemidji, Minn., with a capacity of 30,000,000 feet, and vice-president of the Northwest Lumber Company, Kalispell, Mont., having a capacity of nearly 20,000,000 feet. My personal holdings in the United States as represented in the above and other companies are several times what my interests are in Canada.

It is my opinion that the removal of the tariff would work no unnecessary hardships on the lumber industry in the United States; it might take a short time to readjust the changed conditions, but I believe it would be for the best of the people at large that the tariff on lumber should be abolished.

Yours, truly,

D. N. WINTON.

EXHIBIT E.

Cost of manufacture at mill of Stanley-Smith Lumber Company, Hood River,

Oreg.

[Statement by F. S. Stanley of that company.]

Our reports from Hood River show that we are manufacturing from 100,000 to 140,000 feet per day, at the following averages;

Cost per thousand of lumber manufacture at a Puget Sound mill, Washington.

Average cost of logs for month__

$6.447

Labor in sawmill per thousand, including all labor on logs from pond to pile in yard---

1.87

Total average cost of rough lumber per thousand in pile in yard. 10.054 Dressed lumber-labor, repairs, and supplies.

.739

Total cost of dressed lumber..

10.793

Cost per thousand of production at Rogers Lumber Company's mill, at Enderby,

British Columbia.

This is based on our figures for 1907 and taken from our books:

In 1908, owing to having changed our method of operation to some extent, we have reduced our cost:

Logs delivered at the mill.

Sawing and putting in pile_

Taking the lumber from pile and loading cars_.

General expense, including salaries, interest, and taxes.

Total

$6.50

2.89

15

3.05

12.59

Cost at British Columbia mill $1.80 per thousand more than at Washington mill.

EXHIBIT G.

Lumber output and shipments of British Columbia coast lumber manufacturers

NOTE.-Shipments by rail include all lumber sold to railways, Dominion government works, etc., and to the trade in eastern Canada.

EXHIBIT H.

Hon. SERENO E. PAYNE,

ITHACA, N. Y., November 12, 1908.

Chairman Ways and Means Committee, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: Having been informed that the lumber associations of Washington and Oregon will be represented before the Ways and Means Committee at Washington, D. C., on November 20 next and make remonstrance against the reduction or removal of duty imposed on lumber coming from Canada into the United States, and claiming for reason that they are unable to compete with lumber manufactured in British Columbia without such protection, I inclose for your information the northwest cargo statistics, compiled by these associations, covering fourteen years' shipments from Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia, which plainly shows what Washington and Oregon have been able to do in world-wide markets and competition without tariff protection.

Upon examination you will find that Washington and Oregon increased their shipments from 131,055,817 feet foreign in 1895 to 363,372,088 feet foreign in 1907, or nearly three times as much in 1907 as in 1895, while British Columbia increased from 40,745.270 feet foreign-in 1895 to 67,193,209 feet in 1907, or less than twice as much in 1907 as in 1895, and in markets where British Columbia had equal facilities for competition with Oregon and Washington.

It is evident that if Washington and Oregon have competed successfully with British Columbia so long in foreign markets without a protective duty, they are able to do so at home.

It can be easily verified that these shipments were a very large percentage of the total production of the coast mills of these respective districts, and would not have been made by Washington

and Oregon if the eastern rail trade, protected by the tariff, had been more profitable, as nearly all of the coast export mills have equal advantage with other mills for rail shipments to eastern markets and engage in both export and domestic trade.

It is also well known that Washington mills have shipped largely by rail to Winnipeg and points west in Canada for many years, and many delegations and petitions have been sent by British Columbia lumbermen to Ottawa, asking that the same duty on common dimension lumber now charged upon Canadian lumber coming into the United States be charged upon the same grades coming into Canada from the United States, but it has always been refused by the Dominion government. The duty on rough lumber not planed coming into this country is $2 per thousand feet, but if planed on one side and edge like common dimension, it is $3 per thousand feet. Canada admits both grades free.

The duty imposed is not reasonable protection, but a prohibitive tariff, which is plainly shown under the table inclosed of domestic water shipments for the same period, which were subject to the duty, where it is seen that British Columbia shipped, in 1895, 13,602,811 feet, principally to California, and comparatively nothing since, although British Columbia coast mills shipped 261,000,000 feet in 1907, of which about 75 per cent was shipped by rail east into Canada and 25 per cent exported by water to foreign countries, or about 70,000,000, of which only about 3,000,000 came to the United States. Trusting that this information may be of use to you in your investigations, I beg to remain,

Yours, very respectfully,

EDGAR H. BUCKLIN, 205 West Green Street, Ithaca, N. Y.