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Mr. FORDNEY. What is the rate of protection, ad valorem, on your product compared with those things that you purchase?

Mr. WHITE. About 11 per cent, as against 40 per cent.

Mr. FORDNEY. I will give you the figures here, and I would like to have this go in the record.

Mr. WHITE. Yes.

Mr. FORDNEY. The government reports for the last five years show on imported lumber the rate is 13.02 cents protection, based on the value of the lumber when imported.

Mr. WHITE. I do not know about that.

Mr. FORDNEY. Do you know of any other product in the United States that has as little protection as Ïumber?

Mr. WHITE. I do not, sir.

Mr. FORDNEY. Or any product which has anywhere near as small protection?

Mr. WHITE. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know of any that needs as little?

Mr. WHITE. I really think that the lumber manufacturer as a manufacturer has made less money than the manufacturer in the United States of almost any other article.

The CHAIRMAN. You spoke about the tariff on machinery that you use to make lumber in this country.

Mr. WHITE. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. The Canadian manufacturer buys the same machinery from this country, does he not?

Mr. WHITE. Not always, I think.

The CHAIRMAN. As a general rule?

Mr. WHITE. I think that he buys the best machinery, and he gets it here, some of it, of course.

The CHAIRMAN. He buys it generally from this country, does he not?

Mr. WHITE. I expect he buys his sawmills from this country.
The CHAIRMAN. What is that?

Mr. WHITE. His sawmills, I think, he buys from this country.

The CHAIRMAN. And he has to pay the tariff on that machinery to get it into Canada?

Mr. WHITE. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know what per cent?

Mr. WHITE. I do not know what the per cent is.

The CHAIRMAN. He is not as well off in that respect as you are, is he?

Mr. WHITE. He is better off on the entire material that goes into the manufacture, the permanent manufacture.

The CHAIRMAN. Take sawmills. We will not go beyond that item on this question.

Mr. WHITE. In regard to the sawmill, I think that if the tariff was off he would get his raw material in Canada, of course he can get that in cheaper. But we have the skilled labor on this side, and I expect he would buy his mills here.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not know why, but I do not seem to make myself understood.

Mr. WHITE. Well, I beg your pardon.

The CHAIRMAN. You buy your sawmills in this country to manufacture here?

Mr. WHITE. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. The Canadian buys his sawmills in this country and imports them into Canada?

Mr. WHITE. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And pays the duty on them?

Mr. WHITE. I do not know how much duty.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, he pays the duty, whatever it is?

Mr. WHITE. I expect so.

The CHAIRMAN. If he pays the duty, he is so much worse off than you are, as far as the sawmill case is concerned?

Mr. WHITE. Yes; I see. That is right.

Mr. FORDNEY. Do you know of any agricultural product the producer of which has as little protection to-day as the manufacturer of lumber has on his product?

Mr. WHITE. I do not, sir.

Mr. Pou. Do you know whether the Canadian pays more or less than you do for the same things that you buy for manufacturing your product?

Mr. WHITE. I do not. The statistics are here, and I think they will be shown by others.

Mr. Pot. On that proposition you can not answer?

Mr. WHITE. No, sir; I have never operated in Canada. I have confined my operations to American timber.

Mr. Pot. I am not speaking of timber. You enumerated a lot of things there that you say you have to pay a tariff on.

Mr. WHITE. Yes, sir; that is right."

Mr. Por. Take the sawmills and sawmill supplies and machinery. Mr. WHITE. Yes.

Mr. Pou. Do you know whether the Canadian pays more or less than you do for the same things?

Mr. WHITE. I do not. I know that on a great deal of this that is imported, iron link chains and iron shoes and nails and spikes and things of that kind, he gets in his supplies free of duty from the other side.

Mr. Pou. I am speaking of the American manufacturer.

Mr. WHITE. Of the American manufacturer? I do not know whether his duty is lower or higher than ours.

Mr. Por. I am not speaking of the duty; I am speaking of the price he has to pay.

Mr. WHITE. I do not know whether the price he has to pay is lower or higher.

Mr. Pou. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. Conclude your statement.

Mr. WHITE. In regard to oak lumber, some one was inquiring about oak furniture. You can buy any amount of oak lumber in the South at $2 stumpage, and oak lumber is as a drug. I am interested in three mills now that are shut down because we can not sell our oak lumber.

The sawmill man has always followed the settlements and manufactured lumber for the country and the growing towns, while the farmers all around him were rolling their timber into log heaps and burning it to make way for fields of corn and meadows. Nearly all farmers made their own log buildings, and they even split their walnut into rails. I mention this because we are accused of destroy

ing the forests; but the lumber manufacturer has always cut his top log and always cut just as much as he had a market for and as much as he could sell, and as a manufacturer he has just followed along the settlements and sold his lumber when he could sell it, so as to induce the consumer to buy it instead of putting up log buildings, and when the railroads came along and went far into the interior and opened up the prairies of the West, then it occurred to some one that he could make some money by buying stumpage-buying fifteen or twenty years ahead as an investment-and they did so, and their money has been made off of the stumpage. The man that went along and simply bought his timber from day to day or from year to year did not make much money, as I have said before.

The pledge made in the Chicago convention on June 18th last, and since reiterated by President-elect Taft, for a revision of the tariff so as to impose such duties as shall equalize the cost of production at home and abroad, and provide a reasonable profit for American industries, especially recognizing the needs and welfare of wage-earners generally, holds no fears for the lumber manufacturer. The lumber industry can appeal to that pronouncement and indorse the sentiment, as will the hundreds of thousands of American laborers who form the great army of workers in lumber. If the entire protective policy of the United States were to be abandoned to free trade the lumbermen would have no argument to present, but since protection as well as revenue is to remain the basis of our system of imposts the lumber trade feels that its stand in behalf of at least the present rates of duty is impregnable to any attack.

The degree of protection to lumber is now far below the average as compared with other protected items in the tariff schedule. I think it is equivalent to not more than 11 per cent ad valorem on rough lumber, while the average on dutiable articles imported into this country, I am told, is about 40 per cent ad valorem. And if rates are to be reduced because some articles related to the development of manufacture and agriculture are now found to be too highly protected certainly lumber is not among them.

If it be the policy to readjust the rates relative to the needs of each industry, according to the declaration made in Chicago before referred to, so as to yield a reasonable profit to American producers, then might lumber well ask for a higher rate. Under no conceivable theory excepting that of free trade can the lumber tariff be lowered or removed.

I am told that the duties received from lumber imported from British North America into the United States during the last fiscal year were about $3.000.000 and were much lower than in previous years. The schedule of values of sawed imported lumber show that it is chiefly the lower grades of Canadian lumber that are exported to the United States.

This will be giving us more of these grades to consume, making it necessary for the American manufacturer to leave far more of his* poorer grades to rot in the woods. To the Canadian, or to the American who owns stumpage in the British possessions in the Bahamas, or in Mexico, a reduction in the duty would be welcome, and in the same proportion it would be an injury to the American manufacturer and to the American workman. The upper grades of lumber take care of

themselves, and find markets all over the world, and no revision of tariff is asked on their account, but the lower grades are found in the same tree, and are greatly in excess of the better grades, and the danger to be feared is the production of a surplus supply of lower grades. In the interest of forest conservation it is necessary to still further increase the proportion of lower grades. This can not be done if more of these grades are to be dumped in upon us, as a result of tariff reduction.

I went over into Washington a few weeks ago and I saw 20 or 30 shingle mills at work. I drove 20 or 30 miles into the country, and I saw these mills working on the stumps of trees that had been cut, some of them, twenty years ago, and the shingles were all made by those mills from logs and stumps-down timber and stumps. There is a saving to this generation and to future generations if we can so conserve the waste that is going on and use it and let the standing timber grow. I think that the shingle manufacturer of the Pacific coast will naturally object to any system of reduction that will prevent his saving his own timber-the down timber and the stumps.

Mr. LONGWORTH. I would like to ask the exact technical definition of the word "stumpage."

Mr. WHITE. It means the amount of standing timber that will make a thousand feet of lumber. In regard to the present prices of lumber, the manufacturers do not know that I have this little slip. and I am going to leave it here as a part of my remarks. A retail manufacturer sent out an inquiry the other day for prices on lumber delivered on a 263-cent rate, and 16 different mills, 16 different manufacturers in the United States who manufacture the same kind of lumber-yellow pine-replied, and I have the result here. They have all bid on that bill of lumber, and their bids run from $1 to $3.50 per thousand. This simply shows that there is not any agreement among lumber men.

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Mr. FORDNEY. You do not know of any trust?

Mr. WHITE. I do not know of any trust, and the manufacturers when they see that, if they do see that in print, will be surprised, because it was a retail dealer that sent this out, and it shows the great variation of prices.

Mr. Por. Did he send it out for the purpose of getting the information to use in this inquiry?

Mr. WHITE. No, sir; he did not. He is interested, I think, a little more on the other side. He has been over there all summer, and he has some retail yards, and he wanted to buy this lumber, and he is interested in a mill that I am interested in, and so he gave this to me. He said: "Just look here; just see what a difference there is. I do not want my name used, and I am just going to cut my letter head off, but you can see what a difference there is on the 261 cent rate on the same kind of lumber.“

In regard to laths, Mr. Clark called attention to that. I want to say something about the cost of laths and the present market price up in Mr. Clark's district to the retailer. The present price of laths delivered in Mr. Clark's district, in that part of Missouri and all up in the northern part of the State, is $3.05 a thousand, 10 bundles, and it costs $1.40 a thousand to manufacture those laths and put them on the cars. The freight on those laths is just $1.15 a thousand. One dollar and fifteen cents and $1.40 would make $2.55. The difference between $2.55 and $3.05 leaves just 50 cents. There is just 50 cents profit on those laths.

Mr. CLARK. Fifty cents profit to the wholesaler?

Mr. WHITE. Fifty cents profit to the wholesaler provided he does not ask anything for his timber.

Mr. CLARK. Provided he does not ask anything for his timber? Mr. WHITE. Yes.

Mr. CLARK. You do not mean to say that the timber in a thousand laths would cost anybody a dollar and forty cents, do you?

Mr. WHITE. I mean to say that it costs a dollar and forty cents a thousand to manufacture them.

Mr. CLARK. Why, certainly; counting the cost of the timber in. Mr. WHITE. No, sir: the cost of manufacturing them, tying them into bundles, running them through your dry kiln and drying them, and loading them on the cars, is a dollar and forty cents.

Mr. CLARK. For a thousand laths.

Mr. WHITE. Yes, sir; for a thousand laths.

Mr. CLARK. And the retailer got $2.95?
Mr. WHITE. Yes.

Mr. CLARK. That was his rake-off?

Mr. WHITE. Yes; I would not wonder.

Mr. CLARK. Is there not any way on the face of the earth, somewhere between the fellow that owns the stump and the man that buys it at last, that somebody will not gouge him somewhere along the road?

Mr. WHITE. The retail man is generally your neighbor.

Mr. CLARK. Yes.

Mr. WHITE. He lives right in your town, and you will have to deal with him.

Mr. CLARK. That is what I will do. [Laughter.] Now, I want to ask you two or three questions. Mr. Fordney asked you if all

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