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Mr. LAMB. Simply because we can not afford to take it to market and make a profit on it. We do take a great deal of stuff that we do not make a profit on; and we depend upon the better class of material to even it up. But beyond a certain point, if we take it all, it means only financial bankruptcy.

Mr. FORDNEY. If the price of lumber in the market for the low grades was high enough you could take it clean, could you not?

Mr. LAMB. If it was high enough; and along that line I will cite a comparison between last year and this. Last year logs were selling at from $10 to $12 per thousand; this year from $8 to $9. Every logger on the coast is leaving in the woods from 10 to 20 per cent of the material that he took out last year, simply because the market will not take that low-grade stuff. If you put it in and take it to market, you can not sell it for anything at all.

Mr. FORDNEY. If the duty is taken off British Columbia lumber and their low grades come into our market, you would either have to leave more of your coarse timber in the woods or stop logging?

Mr. LAMB. That is, granting that it would have any effect upon our prices.

Mr. FORDNEY. Would not a greater supply of the low grades in your market right now have a tendency to reduce prices?

Mr. LAMB. Yes, sir.

Mr. FORDNEY. That is all.

Mr. RANDELL. You stated something to the effect that the material necessary in your business costs less across this imaginary line you speak of; in other words, that in British territory the material costs less than it does in the United States. Did I understand you correctly?

Mr. LAMB. What material is that-stumpage?

Mr. RANDELL. No; cables and chain and so on.

Mr. LAMB. I said that certain items would cost less there.

Mr. RANDELL. What sort of items?

Mr. LAMB. Wire rope and railroad materials, some classes of which are cheaper in British Columbia than in the United States. Mr. RANDELL. Where is that material purchased?

Mr. LAMB. It is purchased from England, under preferential tariff duties granted to the colonies.

Mr. RANDELL. Is not most of their material purchased from the United States?

Mr. LAMB. Not in those lines. There is scarcely any American. wire rope used in British Columbia, excepting when they happen to get out of odd sizes and have to send over for it across the line.

Mr. RANDELL. If the tariff remains as it is will not, in your opinion, the cutting of the timber be faster in your section of the country than it would be if the tariff were taken off?

Mr. LAMB. I did not understand you.

Mr. RANDELL. Would there not be more timber cut in your section of the country if the tariff remains as it is than if the tariff were to be removed?

Mr. LAMB. I believe so: certainly that would be the case if it would have any effect upon American conditions at all.

Mr. RANDELL. Then would there be more or less cut on the Canada side, on the British Columbia side?

Mr. LAMB. There would probably be more there.

Mr. RANDELL. If the tariff was allowed to stay as it is, there would be more than if it is removed?

Mr. LAMB. No. If the tariff was removed it would increase logging and lumbering operations on the Canadian side, especially in cedar, on which they can compete with us even with a 30-cent duty.

Mr. RANDELL. Some gentlemen here have said that the great reserve supply for the country is in that section, on both sides of that line. Do you think it would be better, just as a matter for the good of the country, to adopt a policy that would denude our forests first and leave the reserve in British Columbia, or denude their forests first and leave the reserve with us?

Mr. LAMB. This leads up to the question of whether the British Columbians are going to allow you to denude their forests. Understand that 99 per cent of the timber lands in British Columbia are granted under leases which are renewed from year to year, and the royalty can be fixed at any time, at any year; and it is unreasonable to suppose that the government of British Columbia is going to allow speculators to go in there and reap the "unearned increment," as some have called it, in stumpage. They have increased the stumpage rate, or "royalty." as they call it, on some leases, to 60 cents. If we take off the tariff and make their timber worth as much as ours, $2.50, the government will undoubtedly raise their royalty, and they will take the benefit of it.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any further questions? If not, I understand that Mr. Skinner wants to make a further statement.

FURTHER STATEMENT OF MR. D. E. SKINNER.

Mr. SKINNER. Mr. Chairman, I am not at all anxious to make any further statement, except that I might say that I presumed, as you adjourned the session before dinner, that I would have an opportunity to at least offer a few remarks that would complete what I had to say. I will make them just as brief as I can.

The CHAIRMAN. Certainly.

Mr. SKINNER. I am quite as tired as all of the committee are.
The CHAIRMAN. If you desire, we will hear you now.

Mr. SKINNER. Very well, sir. I have some memoranda here that I should like to submit. There has been a statement made here, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen

The CHAIRMAN. I will say to you that I supposed you had concluded your remarks. The committee had asked you questions, and I thought you were through.

Mr. SKINNER. I beg your pardon, sir; but I asked you if you would not permit me not to have to make my speech in six minutes before dinner. Still, I do not want to extend it very much.

The statement has been made here to-day that the rate of wages in British Columbia and on the other side, especially in the Kootenai country, between the Selkirk and the Cascade ranges, is the same as on this side, or higher; also, that the cost of machinery is practically the same. I cite the committee to the fact that machinery is being constructed in Canada to-day, especially in Hamilton and in other places, by concerns that have been created by concerns on this side, to avoid that duty. They are duplicating their machinery and building it in Canada, for use in Canadian mills, the most of it-at least,

a great share of it so that they will not have to pay a very large portion of the duty that is supposed to be paid on the machinery that enters into their mill construction.

Also, we have here some pictures in which the committee will, perhaps, be interested; and we would like to have the privilege of having them printed in the record at our own expense. They show the oriental labor; and we also have statements as to the price paid them, and the affidavits of the people who have taken these pictures, showing the amount of oriental labor used in the Canadian mills as compared with those used in the American mills. We have about a thousand orientals in Washington State, I believe; and in Canada there are 60,000. I should judge, from the pictures which come to us well vouched for, that the majority of those used in the mills-in fact, the statements say that probably 80 per cent of the men who are employed around the mills are orientals. Some of them are Hindus, only earning from 80 cents to $1.25 per day. We claim that there is a considerable difference in the cost of manufacture, and that we are entitled to a reasonable consideration for that difference in cost of manufacture.

We also want you to understand, Mr. Chairman, that it is a very serious question, even if we could grant that the cost of manufacture was the same on the other side, as to whether the wage should be paid on the other side or on this side of the line; and we urgently request that the conditions shall continue by which the wage can be paid on this side of the line and the timber remain on this side, if necessary. Before we adjourned a little while ago I stated that Mr. Pinchot's estimate of about 1,400 billion feet of timber was supposed to be made from the cruises of the individual holders, 60 per cent of which, I think, is about what he secured (I do not believe he secured the remaining 40 per cent); and, in addition, the cruises on the holdings of the Government. That does not represent at all, of course, the amount that the land will yield. It is simply the result of the cruise. The Bureau of Corporations came to me and asked me for a statement of the amount of our cruising. I gave it to them very frankly and honestly; but I knew that our cruising would turn out considerably more, and it is always recognized that the cruise is less than the yield.

I understand that the Department of Forestry's statement is that the total consumption in the United States annually is about 150,000,000,000 feet. They jump anywhere from 100,000,000,000 to 150,000,000,000 feet, 40,000,000,000 to 50,000,000,000 feet of which is composed of lumber and shingles; the balance of cordwood and wood for various other purposes. I should judge, from traveling across the continent many times, that the average farmer is growing about all of the wood that is used for his ordinary purposes.

Then, again, more particularly, we wish to call your attention to the fact that when they estimate the amount that is used, they estimate the total cubic capacity of the tree, including the limbs and all; but when they estimate the amount of standing timber, they give you the amount of standing timber which they estimate on the government reserves, and nothing but the cruise, and they give you a portion of the private holdings which they can get. I do not think it is quite fair to estimate the length of time that the timber will last

in the United States by dividing the amount estimated in any such

manner.

Our experience has taught us, from our shipments to New York, that the most serious competition we have to expect is from the Yalu River, the Saghalien Islands, from Canada, from Mexico, and from Alaska, into the east-coast States. They have the privilege of the use of foreign bottoms there at a considerably less rate than we have, because we have practically exhausted all of the American vessels that ply between the two coasts, because, of course, you recognize the fact that foreign bottoms are excluded from plying between the two coasts. We ask that we have some protection in consideration of that condition which we shall have to meet in the future, and more particularly when at the end of five or six years the canal will probably be in operation, or at the end of ten years, or whatever the approximate time may be. The Government has promised to have it done within a reasonable time, and we look forward to the time when the operation of the canal will allow the importation of enough wood from the west coast to take care of practically, if necessary, a great share of the demands of the New England States and as far west as Pittsburg and Buffalo on a water rate via the canal, or even now in a foreign bottom via the Horn, at no higher rate than it costs to ship across the country by rail.

We also have to take into consideration the fact that if you have no duty we are handicapped the difference of practically the amount of the present duty in our coastwise shipments. They have been barred from our coastwise trade, which amounts to 1,250 million feet a year in San Francisco and San Pedro and Los Angeles and San Diego. If they had an opportunity to compete with us in their coastwise trade with foreign bottoms, they could reduce the freight rate at least $1.25 per thousand-I should estimate nearly $1.50 on the average-because you can operate a steam schooner much cheaper than you can operate a sailing vessel; and the sailing vessels are carrying the larger part of the trade to-day. If they do monopolize a good deal of that trade, naturally that must force back just so much of the balance that they do take on to the balance of our trade, compelling us to reach into the eastern trade, demoralize the eastern conditions, close our mills, reduce our wages, and probably deprive the 171.000 men that we estimate we are using in the mills to-day on the coast, with all of their families and all of those dependent upon them, of a fair portion at least of their wage and of their occupation.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand that you would like to have those illustrations printed in the record?

Mr. SKINNER. Yes, sir. Can we put these in and have them printed in the record if we have the work done at our own expense? The CHAIRMAN. We shall not be able to get them in the daily record, because there is not time to prepare the plates.

Mr. SKINNER. Oh, I understand that.

The CHAIRMAN. And I think perhaps you had better make the arrangement with the Public Printer about them, because, as I understand it, the committee have no authority to order any illustrations without the consent of the Joint Committee on Printing of the two Houses. That is the way I remember the law. But there would not be any objection to your making arrangements with the Public Printer and then having them come into the permanent record when

it is printed and bound in a volume. You could not get it in the daily record, of course.

Mr. SKINNER. We wish to thank you, sir, for that courtesy.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any questions? If not, we will hear Mr. Goodyear, of Buffalo, representing the Goodyear Lumber Company.

STATEMENT OF MR. CHARLES A. GOODYEAR, OF BUFFALO, N. Y.

Mr. GOODYEAR. You said " representing the Goodyear Lumber Company," did you, Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. That is what I said.

Mr. GOODYEAR. Oh! I thought you said "trust." [Laughter.] Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I want to confess at the outset that I know very little about this most complicated affair called the tariff. I am quite sure that in order to comprehend it, or understand its various provisions and schedules and their relations to each other, I should have to give up all other business which I have and devote myself solely to this one question of tariff and schedules. I am not so egotistical as to think that by reading the bill through I could understand it, or even approach a fair comprehension of it. From my point of view, it is one of the most intricate and one of the most complicated affairs that the Government of the United States has to deal with. And for me to undertake to understand it with what limited time I have would be a work of supererogation. It would be useless. I would not know what I was reading after I got through.

With that premise, confessing my ignorance as I do and my inability to devote the time necessary to even attempting to understand the tariff schedules and their various relations to the different sections of the country, I want to say that, looking at the thing broadly and without attempting to understand details, I believe that as a matter of fairness between man and man, between one line of business and another in our country-the lumber industry-so long as the protective idea is to prevail, should have its fair percentage of protection against foreign importation. This country, by unanimous vote-not by unanimous vote, either, but by emphatic vote-has since 1896 declared that the principle of protection shall prevail rather than that of tariff for revenue only. To be sure, during the last campaign there was a plank incorporated in the Republican platform that was rather more liberal toward the "free traders," as they are called---but unfairly, I think. They are not free traders. They are people who believe in a modified tariff to a greater extent than a great many people do who are members of the Republican party.

I believe there are very few people throughout the country who earnestly and seriously advocate absolute free trade for the country. I believe that there are a very much larger number who sincerely believe that we ought to act upon the basis of a tariff for revenue rather than of a tariff for protection; that the protective idea ought to be eliminated: and that we ought to tax the people upon their importations only for the purpose of getting revenue for the Government.

Looking at the matter in that way, as I have stated, and following out the idea that the people of this country have by emphatic vote declared that the protective idea shall prevail, perhaps, with some modifications, that declaration might be taken. If that is so, here is a large industry in our country which affords the means of liveli

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