valuation would be $3, making the landed cost, with the specific and ad valorem duties and freight paid $10.75. The mat would then be about 20 per cent under our price.

The figures look large, but we are paying 35 to 55 cents an hour for labor in competition with the lowest class of labor that there is in India, coolie labor.

Senator SMOOT. What is the value of your mats now per square yard?

Mr. CLEVELAND. The value of our mats is figures per square yard. I am talking of mats now.

Senator SMOOT. In the Payne-Aldrich bill we imposed a duty on mats by the square yard not exceeding 15 cents per yard in value of 4 cents per square yard and 30 cents ad valorem.

Mr. CLEVELAND. I beg pardon, sir, but the Payne-Aldrich bill provided for cocoa mats and mattings under the sundry schedule, it was then 6 cents per square and cocoa mats 4 cents per square yard. Senator SMOOT. Without any ad valorem ?

Mr. CLEVELAND. With no ad valorem.

Senator SMOOT. Then you want 50 per cent increase on the specific and 25 per cent ad valorem, and the American valuation instead of foreign valuation?

Mr. CLEVELAND. I do, because we need it.

Senator SMOOT. That would be about 200 or 300 per cent increase! Mr. CLEVELAND. The McKinley tariff had a duty of 12 cents per square yard on matting and 8 cents per square foot on mats. Under the Underwood tariff, since the armistice, this country has been flooded with Indian mats and mattings. There is not an American manufacturer who is running over 25 per cent capacity. Our mills are practically shut down, and there are more mats coming into the country than we sell in ordinary times.

Senator MCLEAN. How many men are employed in the industrythough perhaps that is all included in your brief.

Mr. CLEVELAND. It is a little industry. I should say also there would not be over 650 in normal times.

Senator MCLEAN. Where is it located?

Mr. CLEVELAND. The names of these different plants are on the brief. Our own particular mat factory is in Wakefield, which in good times employs about 150 people. We have 30 employed there to-day. Senator CALDER. What proportion of the number of mats in use in this country are imported of the kind you are discussing?

Mr. CLEVELAND. For this year there will be, I should say, nearly twice as many brought into the country as they make in ordinary times, and we are making only about 25 per cent of our capacity now. Senator MCLEAN. Is the imported mat as good as yours?

Mr. CLEVELAND. The imported matting is just as good as ours. The imported mat is made with more material in it than we can afford to put in ours. The labor amounts to nothing. The amount of material that goes into the coco mat depends on how high the man making it is willing to beat it up, and when a man's time is worth nothing he puts in more labor.

Senator SIMMONS. What did you say a little while ago about the amount of importations coming into this country at this time?

Mr. CLEVELAND. I said they were coming here in tremendous volume.

Senator SIMMONS. Now?

Mr. CLEVELAND. Yes, now; by every steamer.

Senator SMOOT. You mean made from coco fiber?

Mr. CLEVELAND. Made from coco fiber.

Senator SMOOT. Or rattan?

Mr. CLEVELAND. Or rattan. They are practically all coco fiber; there are no rattan mats made abroad and very few are made in this country now.

Senator SMOOT. Do you know what the importations were in 1914? Mr. CLEVELAND. I can tell you in just a moment. In 1918 the importations of matting were 22,731 yards, and the importation of mats were 38,667 square feet.

Senator SMOOT. That is, of all kinds?

Mr. CLEVELAND. That is, coco mats and matting, or rattan mats— and it is all coco mats.

Senator SIMMONS. I can not understand that.

Mr. CLEVELAND. My figures, Senator, are taken from the Tariff Information Surveys, paragraphs 272 and 273, tariff act, 1913. Senator SIMMONS. Have you these statistics on imports?

Mr. CLEVELAND. I have. But I can not get any such figure. Senator SIMMONS. It gives the imports in 1918 at 38,667 square feet?

Mr. CLEVELAND. Yes, sir; that is the figure I just read, 38,667 square feet coco mats, and coco matting 22,731 square yards.

Senator SIMMONS. But that does not seem to be any flood as compared with 1908, when it was 360,000?

Mr. CLEVELAND. Yes; but

Senator SIMMONS (interposing). In 1909 it was 477,000 square feet and in 1910, 479,000, and only 38,000 in 1918.

Mr. CLEVELAND. But in 1918 they had not started to come. They started to come in full in 1919 and 1920, and all through this year. Senator MCCUMBER. We have nine other witnesses to get through with in half an hour. We will now call Mr. Simpson.

STATEMENT OF MR. J. F. SIMPSON, SECRETARY AND TREASURER MAGINNIS COTTON MILLS, NEW ORLEANS, LA.

Mr. SIMPSON. Gentlemen, I am only going to take a minute to submit a brief and to say that I am up here in the interest of a matter of a duty on burlap. We are manufacturers of cotton bagging. There are a great many uses to which cotton bagging can be put with some protection in the way of a duty on burlap. Cotton bags are used extensively and have been for the last two years in the cement industry. Recently we have had the consolidated railroad classification permission to adopt a single cotton bag to be used per hundred pounds capacity for sugar, which has been tried and proven to be of value, equal in strength and competition with the bag now in use-outside burlap and inside cotton lining. We can produce that bag to-day for a little less money than the double bag will cost the consumer, and with the duty on burlap which will afford some protection.

Senator SMOOт. What do you want?

Mr. SIMPSON. I would ask for a cent a pound and 25 per cent ad valorem.

Senator SMOOт. Instead of 17?

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes, sir.

Senator MCCUMBER. A cent a pound specific and 25 per cent ad valorem?

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes, sir.

Senator MCCUMBER. A cent a pound would be how much ad valorem ?

Mr. SIMPSON. I have not figured that out. There is only one thing I want to add, if you will give me a minute, and that is the fact that the cotton business, and particularly the cotton farmer, has been burdened with the past years by hundreds of thousands; in fact, I think it will amount to 2,000,000 or 3,000,000 bales of considerably lower grade cotton than this country has been accustomed to spinning. It has been only in recent years that machinery has been adapted and perfected at a good deal of cost that will permit the utilization of this cotton for the particular purpose I am so much in favor of advocating for packing use.

Senator SMOOT. These lower grade cottons?

Mr. SIMPSON. These lower grade cottons, which have been a drug on the market, and a weight, you might say, on the better grades. Senator SIMMONS. Have you used them at all in the making of your bags?

Mr. SIMPSON. We are making some cotton bags for cement and also sugar at the moment.

Senator SIMMONS. Have you used this low-grade cotton to any extent in the manufacture of those bags?

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes, sir.

Senator SIMMONS. Sufficient to justify you in your belief that they can be used for that purpose?

Mr. SIMPSON. It is a proven fact. The cement industry have been using cotton bags for several years, and it is a much more satisfactory package.

Senator SIMMONS. What I had directed your attention to was whether you were satisfied that this low-grade cotton would be suitable as the material out of which those bags were made?

Mr. SIMPSON. Thoroughly satisfied.

Senator SIMMONS. Are you using that low-grade cotton satisisfactorily?

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes, sir.

Senator SIMMONS. You are not using the high grade at all?
Mr. SIMPSON. No, sir; we could not afford it.

Senator SIMMONS. As a matter of curiosity, I would like to ask the witness: Could you tell us how many bales of cotton have been used in this way?

Mr. SIMPSON. I can only speak for ourselves. We have a consumption of between 20,000 and 24,000 bales a year in a 40,000spindle mill.

(The brief submitted by Mr. Simpson is here printed in full, as follows:)

STATEMENT ON JUTE AND BURLAP.

To the COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS:

I am appearing before you in the matter of duty on burlap, which is a textile made from jute, and jute is an almost exclusive East India product. The annual imports of burlap are about 900,000,000 yards.

There is at present no duty on burlap. The consumption of burlap is mainly for wrapping of bales and for the manufacture of bags.

In both cases the cost of individual package falls upon the consumer, but it is so very widespread that any duty would not be any great hardship to anyone. Therefore, as a source of revenue a duty on burlap is one that is ideal in its purpose and equity.

However, as a matter of protection to American industry, the actual indisputable facts are these. In every normal cotton crop there is invariably a large proportion of low-grade cotton. This cotton is made low grade by rain, snow, or winds, particularly during the late fall months and during the picking season. Prior to the war Europe, particularly Germany and Austria, were large consumers of these low-grade cottons and at discounts in price that were indeed very severe to the grower. Within the past two or three years American cotton mills have solved the usage of this cotton by installation of very expensive machinery, and it has now been absolutely demonstrated that bags, twine, and rope can be made therefrom in strength and service satisfactory to the consumer.

However, such bags are competitive with burlap bags. Such twine and rope are competitive with raw jute and sisal. To-day a heavy cotton bag can be made for 100 pounds of sugar in competition with a burlap bag with a cotton liner. This is, however, because the accumulation of low-grade cottons has depressed the price to some 500 points, or 5 cents, a pound below the current price of middling cotton. Heavy cotton osnaburg bags are used by the millions for cement; however, heavy inroads have been made on this trade by jute bags.

At the present time burlap is at a normal price. Low-grade cottons are below the cost of production. With every fair and reasonable comparison of values in past records of burlap and cotton, it is beyond question that, with a duty of 1 cent per pound and 25 per cent ad valorem on burlap and a duty of 40 per cent on raw jute, hundreds of thousands of bales of low-grade cottons can be profitably converted into bags, rope, and twines by the cotton mills of this country and satisfactory to the consumer. It is the weight of number of bales of low-grade cottons in the annual carry over that depresses all grades of cotton. To stabilize to a reasonable value low-grade cottons would be the greatest possible benefit to the cotton grower. His prosperity or his adversities are keenly felt by all manufacturers of this country. His purchasing power depends on his money crop which he can market but one time in the year, and that is cotton. Once the cotton bag made from low-grade cotton is established, its uses will rapidly spread for shipment of sugar, rice, beans, salt, cement, flour, and many other commodities. Nothing will be more helpful toward this end than a duty on burlap and jute.

There should be a duty on foreign-made bags of at least 20 per cent more than on burlap.

A duty on raw jute has not heretofore been advocated, because 50 per cent of the imports of raw jute went into the manufacture of bagging for covering cotton. It has also followed that no duty should be put on imported bagging for covering cotton. The American manufacturers of bagging for covering of cotton have recently established large mills in India for the manufacture of this bagging, simply because, notwithstanding free jute, American mills could not compete with the India mills in the cost of production. This same condition also applies to the comparison of wages paid by the American cotton mills and that paid by the jute mills in India. This comparison is laid before you to emphasize the fact that if American cotton mills in the consumption of low-grade cotton are to compete with burlap a reasonable consideration must also be given to the standard of living that we hope for for the American wage earner.

MAGINNIS COTTON MILLS,
By J. F. SIMPSON,

Secretary and Treasurer.

Senator MCCUMBER. We will next hear Mr. Gilmore.

STATEMENT OF MR. JAMES GILMORE, REPRESENTING IMPORTERS OF JUTE PADDINGS, NUTLEY, N. J.

Senator SMOOт. What paragraph are you interested in?
Mr. GILMORE. I am interested in 1008.

Senator MCCUMBER. You may proceed.

Mr. GILMORE. I am not interested in manufacturing, either here or abroad. I am representing the importers of jute paddings which come in under 1010.

Senator MCCUMBER. What are you interested in importing?

Mr. GILMORE. Jute canvas or jute paddings. They are at present on the free list, and they have been taxed under the McKinley bill at 15 per cent and seven-eights cent per pound, but here they are under this paragraph 1010 at 33 per cent ad valorem, under American valuation. This, gentlemen, is a very extraordinary rate of duty, because there is no domestic industry in existence to protect, and the cloths are of very low order.

I have got here a couple of samples to show you how they are used. They go into the cheapest clothing that we make in the United States, workingmen's clothing mostly.

Senator SMOOT. You mean there is no wove fabrics composed wholly or in chief value of jute?

Mr. GILMORE. This is pure jute. The word "jute" should be eliminated. They are No. 1010 but specified under 1008, and it should be eliminated from 1010-that is to say, flax, hemp, or jute; the word "jute" should be eliminated. They are made up like this [exhibiting sample to the committee] in a very cheap way.

Senator SMOOT. There are a good many goods made the chief value of which would be of jute, and then another substance like wool, and maybe even silk?

Mr. GILMORE. Oh, yes.

Senator SMOOT. That is what paragraph 1010 is.

Mr. GILMORE. Paragraph 1010, plain fabrics, composed wholly of jute. Now, in 1008 it is wholly jute.

Senator SMOOт. Oh, no- -"or in chief value."

Senator McCUMBER. It could be.

Senator SMOOT. Yes; it could be, but one is finer thread than the other.

Mr. GILMORE. These pure-jute fabrics should not come in at a higher rate of duty than jute cloths.

Senator SMOOT. The reason is they are a very much higher rate of goods and finer thread.

Mr. GILMORE. You will observe that the linen fabrics-and here is a sample of linen cloth now [exhibiting sample to the committee] which takes 30 per cent, and this is now coming in free [indicating). and you ask 33 per cent American valuation on this. What I am ading for is that you give the clothing manufacturers a chance to

in a cheap fabric to make the very cheapest workmen's clothing that is made in the country. If you tax it, I presume, a pair of fronts made up it would not exceed 25 cents; if you increase it, the American valuation to 33 per cent, it will simply add 50 per cent

more.

The clothing people have been trying to get the cost of clothing, and especially the cost of cheaper clothing, down, and it seems hardly fair to put that rate of duty so high.

Senator MCCUMBER. We will next hear Mr. McCleary.