Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Mr. MATTERN. Yes, sir; that is, on the larger sizes you have ref

erence to.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Yes; without seriously interfering with the business in this country.

Mr. MATTERN. If you do not get the tariff lower than the cost to manufacture in this country, and give us a chance to compete, I think the manufacturers will be satisfied.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. I want to ask you if you agree to this proposition: Would you think it a reasonable tariff if we put the tariff here at the difference between the foreign price with freight added, and your cost price?

Mr. MATTERN. No, I do not think it would be. I think it ought to be based on our selling price. We do not get a great deal more than cost out of it anyway, so we do not want it all taken away from us.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Chains and cables are a pretty heavy commodity for transportation, and the freight must be considerable, across the water?

Mr. MATTERN. It amounts to about 5 per cent of the value.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. If we give you the benefit of the freight rate to this country over and above your cost price, is not that a fair protection for your profit, a fair margain for your profits?

Mr. MATTERN. That is a very small margin in the manufacturing business, because we have fat years and lean years, and wo do not average 5 per cent.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Are you not just as capable of selling your product as the man abroad is, if you are fighting him on equal terms? Mr. MATTERN. I do not understand your proposition.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. I ask you if you are not just as capable of selling your product as the man abroad if you meet him upon an equal basis?

Mr. MATTERN. I think we are, and that is the reason we are asking for a reduction in the tariff.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. What is the selling price of 2-inch cable to-day? Mr. MATTERN. Two-inch cable is about $3.20 a hundred pounds. Mr. UNDERWOOD. Now, what is the cost price of that?

Mr. MATTERN. About the same.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. About $3.20?

Mr. MATTERN. Yes, sir.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Where is your principal foreign competition? Mr. MATTERN. From England.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. What is the selling price of that same cable in England?

Mr. MATTERN. That is information I say I do not have, but which I have been trying to get. On account of the short notice I had to come here, when it was decided I was to come, I found myself unable to get that information, but I hope to have it within a week, and will then advise you fully in that respect.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. As you evidently have not the information we need, I will ask you if you will file your cost price of all these different cable and chain articles, the cost price here at your factory, the price at which it is sold in England, and the freight rate, and at the end of each comparison put the amount of duty opposite the English product. That will give us some information on which we can make some estimates.

Mr. MATTERN. You want the cost price here and the prices sold for in England and the freight rate from England to America? Mr. UNDERWOOD. Yes; and the duty. That is, give those in separate columns.

Mr. Pou. Is your company a corporation?

Mr. MATTERN. Yes, sir.

Mr. Pou. What is the capitalization?

Mr. MATTERN. One hundred thousand dollars.

Mr. Pou. Did you pay a dividend last year?

Mr. MATTERN. We paid a dividend of 5 per cent.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Can you state how much in your cost price is labor?

Mr. MATTERN. Yes, sir.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. What is it?

Mr. MATTERN. Do you want that included in the statement?

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Yes; the percentage of your cost prices that covers labor.

Mr. GRIGGS. What is your plant worth now?

Mr. MATTERN. We have a plant worth about $200,000. It has just been recently reconstructed. We built the plant by an issue of bonds and increased the capacity.

Mr. Pou. If you get this increase you want in these duties on these smaller chains, will you put up the prices to the consumer?

Mr. MATTERN. No; we could not put up the prices to the consumer, because it would not enable us to get any more money than the German and English makes would sell here for.

Mr. Pou. The foreign competition is the only competition you really have, is it not?

Mr. MATTERN. Oh, no. We have American competition.

Mr. Pou. I mean practically speaking. You all sell at about the same price, do you not?

Mr. MATTERN. The American manufacturers get very close to the same price; yes, sir. For instance, on quarter-inch chain, the American chain manufacturers receive $8.14 a hundred pounds, whereas the English chain makers receive $4.92 per hundred pounds.

Mr. Pou. How many firms are engaged in the business of manufacturing chains that you are putting on the market?

Mr. MATTERN. In the United States?

Mr. Pou. Yes, sir.

Mr. MATTERN. About twenty.

Mr. Pou. Do you have an association?

Mr. MATTERN. No association; no, sir.

Mr. Pou. You have no organization for the purpose of keeping up prices?

Mr. MATTERN. None whatever.

Mr. Pou. But you do not cut prices?

Mr. MATTERN. If you went to buy some chains you would find that they do.

Mr. Pou. I understood you to say awhile ago the prices made by all American manufacturers were practically the same and that the only real competition you had was from those foreign manufacturers?

Mr. MATTERN. On some small sizes that is the case. I would not like to have that remark considered general, because there is compe

tition in the chain business which is very keen, and some of these small sizes we are obliged to sell practically at cost, because the importers bring the foreign goods in and we can not get any more than what the goods actually cost us and even then we can not compete with them.

Mr. CLARK. You make a large profit on the large chains, do you not?

Mr. MATTERN. We make a small profit on the large chains.

Mr. CLARK. All the chains imported into the United States last year only amounted to $70,894.04.

Mr. MATTERN. Yes, sir.

Mr. CLARK. Do you think that that affected the price of American chains any to the people who use them?

Mr. MATTERN. You will notice that most of the importations, in fact, the bulk of the importation of chains, in that $70,000 are very small sizes.

Mr. CLARK. Yes; $16,828 on less than five-sixteenths of 1 inch in diameter.

Mr. MATTERN. Only $16.000? There are two items in that list. Mr. CLARK. All on which the specific duty does not amount to 45 per cent, according to the record, amounted in importation to $51,280.04. How much, in your judgment, does the total output or consumption of chains amount to of those less than five-sixteenths of an inch in diameter?

Mr. MATTERN. Compared with what is made in this country? Mr. CLARK. The whole thing; all of them bought by the American people.

Mr. MATTERN. Oh, it is very small. I should say it would not be more than 3 or 4 or 5 per cent. I do not know exactly. It would not be very much anyway, but that is about it. There is our trouble, that on these small chains we do not have any chance. There is enough business there, so that if we had a chance to compete it would enable us to run a small shop.

Mr. CLARK. What I am trying to get at is this: It seems to me the importation of chains is so small it amounts to nothing in the way of competition to anybody on anything.

Mr. MATTERN. Of course, if you were in the chain business you would look at it in a different light, I suppose, because when we have to compete on chains and our cost compels us to get as much as 16 or 18 cents a pound, and the imported chains are selling in New York at 12 cents a pound, then it is not a pleasant thing to contemplate.

Mr. CLARK. Could you give any reasonable estimate of the money value of all the small chains used in the United States in twelve months? If you do not know, say so, and do not stand off on it. Mr. MATTERN. No; I do not know.

Mr. CLARK. Very well, then.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the smallest size chain here?

Mr. MATTERN. Less than five-sixteenths.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; I guess that is right. Now, those are the smallest chains?

Mr. MATTERN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. The highest importation in any one year was $20,000, since 1897. On those small-sized chains the specific duty runs over 45 per cent.

Mr. MATTERN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. The ad valorem and specific duty is more than 45 per cent. With that specific duty there was only $21,000 worth imported in 1905. Aside from that it runs, say, from $2,000 to $18,000. That is practically prohibitive, is it not?

Mr. MATTERN. Not on those small sizes.

The CHAIRMAN. And an equivalent ad valorem runs all the way from 53 to 64 per cent, and you want that made 90 per cent?

Mr. MATTERN. Yes, sir; and 100 on some of them. We would like to have 100 per cent on most of them.

The CHAIRMAN. What reason do you give for any such doubling of the duty?

Mr. MATTERN. I was just going to explain that. By taking the cost of the chain in England-that is, the selling price, I should say, and the selling price in this country, it can be figured. The quarterinch-chain selling price in England is $8.68 per hundred pounds. The selling price in New York of the American chain is $18 per hundred pounds. Now, if we get 100 per cent duty on that $8.68 we have still less than $18 per hundred pounds.

Mr. CLARK. How do you manage to keep the English chains out of the market with the duty that you have?

Mr. MATTERN. We do not. That is just the point. They are shipping in more than we make.

The CHAIRMAN. Twenty thousand dollars. Is that one-half of 1 per cent?

Mr. MATTERN. No; it is $50,000.

The CHAIRMAN. No; $20,000 the record shows. It is the 45 per cent duty-that is, $50,000.

Mr. MATTERN. The 45 per cent duty is what the bulk of it is calculated on.

The CHAIRMAN. While there is a specific that does not amount to 45 per cent, the specific duty on this amounts to more than 45 per cent, so it is specific duty and nothing else.

Mr. MATTERN. I do not think this specific duty does amount to more than 45 per cent.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; but you do not reduce it to 45. You have to keep it above that. This is not under the 45 per cent business at all.

Mr. LONGWORTH. Do you mean to say you can not give us some rough estimate of the production in this country of chains?

Mr. MATTERN. I can not give any information about that.
Mr. LONGWORTH. You produce $300,000 a year yourself?
Mr. MATTERN. Yes, sir.

Mr. LONGWORTH. How many other concerns are there?
Mr. MATTERN. There are about twenty altogether.

Mr. LONGWORTH. Do they produce as much as you do?
Mr. MATTERN. Oh, no; we are one of the largest.

Mr. LONGWORTH. Well, the total production is how much a year? Would you say $5,000,000?

Mr. MATTERN. I should say that would be a fair guess at it.

Mr. LONGWORTH. Considering every form of chain, the total amount imported is $70,000, and you produce $5,000,000, and yet you come and ask for an increased duty?

Mr. MATTERN. The fact of the matter is that the $70,000 applies only to the sizes on which we ask an increased duty. If you want to look at it that way, that is a different proposition.

Mr. CLARK. You can make big chains at a profit, can you?

Mr. MATTERN. We can if we can get a profitable price when the competition is not too keen.

Mr. CLARK. I know; but you did make big chains at a profit?
Mr. MATTERN. Yes, sir.

Mr. CLARK. And you can not make little chains at a profit?
Mr. MATTERN. That is true.

Mr. CLARK. Why do you not quit making little chains and devote yourself to the big chains?

Mr. MATTERN. We have to supply big and little chains to our customers. A man comes along with an order for small chains and big chains, and we have to supply him with them.

Mr. CLARK. I know; but if you can not make them at a profit, why not buy those imported small chains and put them into your stock and sell them so you will make a profit? The trouble about this whole business is that it will set every man in the country trying to do something he can not do.

Mr. MATTERN. If it is the opinion of the committee that we should close down some of our fires and discharge our workmen, and buy imported goods, I suppose that is what we will have to do.

Mr. CLARK. Why could you not make more big chains and keep your furnaces going?

Mr. MATTERN. The same workmen do not make the big chains who make the small ones.

The CHAIRMAN. You do make small chains?

Mr. MATTERN. A few; yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Some one supplies this market. It is not this $20,000 worth that is imported, is it?

Mr. MATTERN. There is more than $50,000 worth there that is imported. That is about the greater bulk of the market.

Mr. DALZELL. Are there chains made in the Pittsburg district? Mr. MATTERN. Yes, sir.

Mr. DALZELL. Who makes them?

Mr. MATTERN. Very few handmade chains are made there.
Mr. DALZELL. Who makes them?

Mr. MATTERN. The Standard Chain Company and the James Mackay Company. They make mostly machine-made chains, although there are some handmade chains made too.

Mr. Pou. If you should get this increase that you ask for, would not that put you in a position so you could eventually reduce the prices somewhat under what they are now?

Mr. MATTERN. Reduce the price of chain?

Mr. Pou. Yes, sir.

Mr. MATTERN. I do not see how we could, when we are selling at

cost now.

Mr. Pou. The higher you put the duty, the cheaper that enables the manufacturer to sell, does it not?

Mr. MATTERN. It does.

Mr. Pou. That is what everybody has stated that has been here. Now, what I am asking you is: If you should get this increase, after a while that would enable you to put down prices, would it not?

« AnteriorContinuar »