and not exceeding 24 by 30, 5 cents per square foot, and so on, as stated in the brief.

Mr. DALZELL. You would not make any discrimination between the reduction of duties on smaller sizes and larger sizes?

Mr. GOERTNER. No, sir.

Mr. DALZELL. But cut it right in two, right straight through? Mr. GOERTNER. This is not quite cut in two on sizes exceeding 24 by 30, and not exceeding 24 by 60, we propose 12 cents per square foot. The present duty is 22 cents. Sizes exceeding 24 by 60, 20 cents per square foot against 35 cents.

Mr. CLARK. If this tariff is cut in two, as you suggest, will the man who builds houses get any advantage or not?

Mr. GOERTNER. He would at times, but he would not at the moment. Mr. CLARK. Why would he not get it at the moment?

Mr. GOERTNER. Because that class of plate glass is now selling for less than the duty on it. It was even selling for 8 cents a foot less than the maximum duty.

Mr. CLARK. If they undertook to get back to the 46-cent rate, the consumer would get the benefit?

Mr. GOERTNER. They could not get back to that.

Mr. CLARK. How much would he get of this divvy? What per cent?

Mr. GOERTNER. The per cent is difficult to say.

Mr. CLARK. Now, suppose a case. The 46-cent rate, according to your statement, as I gather it, seems to be about the usual rate at which they hold it?

Mr. GOERTNER. No; that was an exceptional rate. The highest

rate.

Mr. CLARK. What would be the usual rate that it would be held at under this tariff?

Mr. GOERTNER. The reduction of duty is 15 cents. It is a little difficult

Mr. CLARK. Oh, I only wanted to know in a general way. I do not expect you to know exactly.

Mr. GOERTNER. The imposition of the 20-cent rate would prevent the American factories from exacting a rate higher than 42 cents at the outside.

Mr. CLARK. Well, would the wholesaler, the jobber, and the middleman manage to appropriate all of that difference, or would the man who builds the house get some advantage from it?

Mr. GOERTNER. The man who builds the house would most distinctly get the advantage.

Mr. CLARK. Now, the real fact about this plate-glass business is a fight between the big sizes and the little sizes?

Mr. GOERTNER. I would not describe it as that.

Mr. CLARK. Well, the American plate-glass manufacturer does not make as much profit upon the big sizes as he does upon the little ones, does he?

Mr. GOERTNER. I should say that they made more profit, on the whole, on large sizes. They seem to be more anxious to sell them. Mr. CLARK. The reason I ask you that is, that I have received several letters from people who make mirrors, and such things as that, and they speak particularly about the small sizes.

Mr. GOERTNER. The small sizes are mostly used in the manufacture of mirror plates.

Mr. CLARK. I understand that; they would not take a piece of glass as big as a window and make a mirror out of it ordinarily.

Mr. DALZELL. What do you say plate glass is selling for now?

Mr. GOERTNER. Well, it is running from 11.4 cents for sizes up to 2 foot 8 to 32.3 cents for the 120-foot glass. I will say, Mr. Dalzell, that I am quite aware that that is not the present asking price, but practically no one has paid the new prices issued about two weeks ago. Those are the actual costs that have been in force since March 12.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. What would you have to say of a uniform rate of 25 cents per foot levied on all glass?

Mr. GOERTNER. I should object very strongly to it.
Mr. Pou. You would object strongly, did you say?
Mr. GOERTNER. Yes, sir.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Would that amount be an increase or a reduction from the general schedule?

Mr. GOERTNER. A very substantial increase.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. What do you say to the question of levying a uniform duty on all glass per foot?

Mr. GOERTNER. No; because the cost of production of all sizes is not the same. A 25-cent-a-foot duty, as I figure it, would be an ad valorem duty of 250 per cent ordinarily on the small size.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. And that would be prohibitory?

Mr. GOERTNER. Absolutely.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. You think that the present way the schedule is arranged is better than fixing a certain rate at so much per foot?

Mr. GOERTNER. Absolutely; it is in accordance with the custom of the trade all over the world, and for a good reason: The claim is very often made that each square foot of plate glass costs as much to produce as the next; that is, that the manufacturer adds together all cost of production, divides it by the total number of feet produced, and calls that an average. As a matter of fact, the average cost runs all the way up from a little over the cost of the polishing to the extreme cost on the large sizes. The whole point is that plate glass is a very peculiar manufacturing proposition. It is almost a raw-material business. A man does not know very much more when he starts to manufacture plate glass, as to what quality he is going to get, than the farmer knows when he plants his seed. It depends a good deal upon fortune. And at the same time he does not find out what quality he has got until he has spent a good deal of manufacturing cost, and I will give you some figures here by way of illustration. We will say that the manufacturer casts ten sheets of glass each 10 feet square, making a thousand feet nearly. The total cost of production of those ten sheets, if they all turned out perfect, would be, say, $240, at 24 cents a foot. That would have included administrative expense, the interest on the investment, fuel, packing, material, labor, and everything of that sort. Now, up to the polishing process all of that thousand feet has paid exactly the same cost, which we will call, for the sake of argument, 18 cents a foot. After the casting is completed it is discovered that two sheets have defects in them, that they are not perfect as whole sheets, although by cutting through these defects it will be possible to get small sheets that are perfect.

Now, I contend that the manufacture of those smaller sheets really saves the manufacturer money, and that the cost of those sheets is really the cost of polishing and nothing else, because the manufacturer has already spent all of the money up to that point. He now can either polish the glass at an expenditure of 6 cents a foot, or throw it away. Taking the exact figures, a thousand square fect-that is, the original ten sheets, at 18 cents that cost, up to the polishing process, is $180. Then the polishing of 800 feet, at 6 cents per foot, gives another $48. That is $228. The question now arises whether the manufacturer is to go on and polish the last 200 feet or not. Suppose he would still have had a reduction in price amounting to 12 cents per foot, in order to dispose of that-that, on that 200 feet, is $24. The cost, however, of polishing those 200 feet is only $12

Mr. UNDERWOOD. He makes a net profit on what otherwise he would have to throw away?

Mr. GOERTNER. Exactly.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. And therefore the rate on the small glass should not be as great as on the large glass?

Mr. GOERTNER. Absolutely not. All over the world glass has always been charged on that basis, and price lists have been made up in that way.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. You are an importer?

Mr. GOERTNER. An importer; yes, sir.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. You are familiar with freight rates?

Mr. GOERTNER. Fairly so.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. What are the freight rates from Antwerp to New York?

Mr. GOERTNER. About 15 shillings. On plate glass it is about 17 shillings a cubic ton. That figures out about 18 cents a hundred pounds.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Does the marine insurance amount to anything? Mr. GOERTNER. Very trifling; I think about three-eighths of 1 per

cent.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. The railroad freight rate on plate glass in the United States, as compared to other things, is high, is it not?

Mr. GOERTNER. Plate glass is from first to third class freight. Mr. UNDERWOOD. About what does it average a hundred miles? Mr. GOERTNER. That is something that I have never gone into, and I could not even make a guess.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Do you know what the rate is from New York to Buffalo?

Mr. GOERTNER. About 24 cents in carload lots and 35 cents in less than carloads.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Twenty-four cents would be the wholesale rate, then?

Mr. GOERTNER. Yes, sir. It is a pretty good-sized wholesaler that ever buys carloads at that.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. That is 24 cents a hundred pounds?

Mr. GOERTNER. I do not guarantee the accuracy of those rates, by any means. That is my recollection of the rate to Rochester; that one I happen to know.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. That is something like 6 and 9 cents per hundred miles to move it. Does that freight rate affect the foreign product

going into western markets in competition with the western glass manufacturers?

Mr. GOERTNER. Almost to the extent that it does the domestic manufacturer, but, as I explained a moment ago, the through rate is a trifle less than the combined local ocean and rail rate. Take the Antwerp to Chicago rate on sheet glass. The same proposition applies to the plate, only with a little different figures. The ocean rate to New York is about 15 cents. The rate to Chicago is 40 cents, making a total of 55 cents; whereas the through rate from Antwerp to Chicago on a through bill of lading is 48 cents. There is a slight reduction in that way, but it is trifling.

Mr. DALZELL. Forty-eight and 55 cents.

Mr. GOERTNER. That is the way it works out.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. These glass manufacturers are located at different places in the United States. Are there zones in which the freight rates compel them to sell their product like coal and such material, or can they all come into each other's territory?

Mr. GOERTNER. In competition with each other, or a foreign manufacturer?

Mr. UNDERWOOD. With each other?

Mr. GOERTNER. Well, the question of competition of American plate-glass manufacturers with each other has not arisen. No one takes that into calculation. I do not know how it would work out. Mr. UNDERWOOD. Then you consider that there is no competition between themselves?

Mr. GOERTNER. There is no real competition.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Can you carry the foreign product into any market in the United States in competition with them, or does the freight rate prohibit you?

Mr. GOERTNER. Not only the freight rate, but the duty. We can never sell foreign plate glass for glazing purposes only in a grade that is not manufactured here. For all practical purposes it is not manufactured.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. You say that part of this duty is prohibitive on
certain grades. On what grades of glass is it prohibitive?
Mr. GOERTNER. On ordinary grades for building purposes.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Describe it thoroughly.

Mr. GOERTNER. Technically speaking, stock sheets of glazing.
Mr. DALZELL. What sizes?

Mr. GOERTNER. All sizes from 2 feet 8 inches square measurement up to 120 square feet.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. I do not understand your answer. Will you describe what you say is prohibitive, what classes of glass?

Mr. GOERTNER. Nearly all the plate glass manufactured in the United States is sold in what is called stock sheets of glazing quality. That is the glass just as it runs from the polishing table. There is a standard of quality, but it is not selected for size in the least. If the light happens to run 16 by 21, or 16 by 42, or 102 by 111, you get it just as it comes.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Is that the ordinary glass that the average house builder will put in the windows?

Mr. GOERTNER. Whenever plate glass is used.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. On that you say it is prohibitive?

Mr. GOERTNER. Absolutely.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. What classes of glass can and do come in under this?

Mr. GOERTNER. Good qualities for the manufacture of mirror plates. Some fine glass for carriage builders, and that sort of work. Mr. UNDERWOOD. Can you describe to the reporter the distinction, technically, between those two classes of glass, so that the committee can technically distinguish it?

Mr. GOERTNER. It could not be described to anybody, Mr. Underwood. I could not describe it to another man in the trade. You can only point it out when the two classes are in front of you. It is the most intangible proposition in the world. It is a matter of judgment. Mr. DALZELL. Take the sizes not exceeding 16 by 24 inches. Are there importers of that size to any extent?

Mr. GOERTNER. I should say there were more in the next bracket. Mr. DALZELL. But I am not asking about the next bracket.

Mr. GOERTNER. There is some glass 16 by 24 imported.

Mr. DALZELL. Large or small importations? What would you say they were last year, for instance?

Mr. GOERTNER. I could not divide it into brackets.

Mr. DALZELL. You could not?

Mr. GOERTNER. No.

Mr. DALZELL. Well, the next bracket, not exceeding 24 by 30 inches; what about the importations in that bracket?

Mr. GOERTNER. Mr. Dalzell, the total importations to the United States last year are given as 3,600,000 square feet, and a trifle over. Mr. DALZELL. All the brackets?

Mr. GOERTNER. Of all brackets together.

Mr. DALZELL. The importations in the bracket not exceeding 16 by 24 inches are 1,207,000 square feet, and the 16 by 24 and not exceeding 24 by 30, 4,597,000 square feet.

Mr. GOERTNER. What year is that?

Mr. DALZELL. 1907.

Mr. GOERTNER. I have my statement here from the organ of the glass trade.

Mr. DALZELL. This is from the report of the Bureau of Statistics. Mr. GOERTNER. This is from this week's National Glass Budget, the Saturday's issue. It gives the importations for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908, as 3,667,000 square feet.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Dalzell is reading the statistics for the year. ending June 30, 1907, and you are reading for the year ending June 30, 1908, a year later.

Mr. GOERTNER. The importations for 1907 were 6,727,000 square feet. Mr. DALZELL. That is for all kinds of plate glass?

Mr. GOERTNER. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Nineteen hundred and seven, of course, was the year of the depression, and not so much plate glass was consumed or imported.

Mr. GOERTNER. Nineteen hundred and six was the banner year. The CHAIRMAN. The year ending June 30, 1907, was under normal conditions. It would not be fair to compare 1907 with 1908. Mr. DALZELL. Have you the figures for 1906?