I have no actual data to show what wages are being paid for a similar class of labor in foreign ore-producing countries, but from what I know personally of their mining conditions, I am confident the average will be considerably below $1.25 if not below $1.

As to costs, I must again confine myself largely to what my own company is doing, but our Lake Champlain deposits are so much more extensive than those of New Jersey, I can safely venture to say that in giving you our costs I am understating those of nearly all other eastern mines, with the possible exception of the Cornwall (Pa.) district. We have always calculated that the lower freight rates from New Jersey mines to the same points of consumption in eastern Pennsylvania put the delivered price of their ore on about the same basis as our Lake Champlain ores. As a large proportion of eastern ores are separated to eliminate the deleterious or lean gangue, the following costs submitted to you include the cost of separation, viz: For the year 1907, the cost at average points of competition with foreign ores was $4.669 per ton, which is equivalent to about 0.073 cent per unit metallic iron; for the eleven months of 1908 (January to November, inclusive) the cost as above was $4.507 per ton, which is equivalent to about 0.070 cent per unit metallic iron.

In these costs no return is allowed on capital invested or profits. Owing to the hazards of mining, together with the extinguishment of ore reserves, a fair return on value of ore beds and capital invested is essential.

Labor in mining alone (including separation) is represented by the following percentages: In 1907, 58 per cent of the cost of ore; in 1908, 52 per cent of the cost of ore.

I have not been able to obtain any actual costs of foreign ore, but I know large quantities have been sold during the past year, delivered at competitive points of consumption on the basis of 74 to 8 cents a unit, which undoubtedly includes a profit to the producer. I also know that in Germany some ores are sold at points of consumption from 75 cents to $2.50 per ton, according to the grade.

In conclusion, I believe that reductions should be made in our present tariff where practicable, but that such reductions should be conservative, not radical in character, and afford adequate protection alike to capital and labor employed in the industries affected. Respectfully submitted.

F. S. WITHERBEE,

Witherbee, Sherman & Co., Port Henry, N. Y.

PYRITES ORE.

[Paragraph 674.]

THE GENERAL CHEMICAL CO., NEW YORK CITY, THINKS THAT A DUTY ON SULPHURET OF IRON WOULD BE INJURIOUS TO THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY.

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS,

NEW YORK, November 25, 1908.

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

GENTLEMEN: The General Chemical Company would regard the enactment of any duty on pyrites ore, or sulphuret of iron, as in

jurious to the chemical industry, and to all industries dependent thereon.

The following are some of the reasons:

This article is the principal raw material of the whole chemical industry. It is the raw material from which sulphuric acid is well and cheaply made, and sulphuric acid is an article of manufacture which is essential to almost all other chemical operations. The United States is relatively poor in deposits of pyrites. The domestic production of pyrites in 1907 amounted to 262,000 tons, while importations amounted to 656,000 tons.

Twenty years ago most of the sulphuric acid was made from brimstone imported from Sicily. In 1887 sulphuric acid of 50° Baumé, known as chamber acid, which is the acid used in making fertilizers, sold at about $12 a ton on the average. At the present time it sells for only about $6 per ton. This enormous reduction in price has been due in large measure to the substitution of cheap pyrites ore, or sulphuret or iron, for Sicily brimstone as the raw material.

Outside of the chemical trade sulphuric acid is directly essential to the prosecution of many industries. Its greatest use is in the manufacture of fertilizers for farming operations. It is equally essential in the refining of oil, in the making of smokeless powder and of dynamite. It is consequently almost directly essential to all forms of mining operations and railroad construction work. The tin-plate industry is dependent upon it, as is that of steel and wire, and so is it with the textile industries. Analysis will show that there are few articles of manufacture in the production of which sulphuric acid has not entered directly or indirectly at some stage of the operation. So great an authority as Humboldt has said that the best measure of the degree of civilization of any country is the extent of its use of sulphuric acid. The present development of the chemical industry is regarded by those who should know as but the beginning of the capabilities of that industry. New products of chemical manufacture are developing continually; the possibilities of such in the future are limited only by human ingenuity and the cost of producing. A country which at this stage of the world's progress should be placed at a disadvantage as regards other countries in the production of sulphuric acid would have no chance whatever in the struggle for industrial supremacy.

For the reasons stated, it would seem that pyrites is more nearly related to the chemical schedule than to the schedule regarding metals now under discussion.

Pyrites is absolutely essential to the cheap production of chemicals; it has almost an infinitesimal bearing upon metals. The total iron contents of all the pyrites ore imported hardly amounts to 1 per cent of the iron ore mined in this country. On the other hand, the sulphur contents of the pyrites so imported constitutes more than 70 per cent of this country's entire consumption of pyrites ore. The United States is incapable at the present time of supplying this raw inaterial from its own resources.

The success and the continued development of the chemical industry are dependent upon having this principal raw material free.

Free raw materials are the more necessary to the chemical industry because of the small measure of protection afforded to its products by the present tariff. A glance at the present tariff will show

that about 2,148 articles are treated therein. Of these some 1,692 are protected by duties, while some 456 is the total number on the free list. The chemical schedule is composed of about 288 articles, of which about 138 are on the free list. Thus the chemical schedule, furnishing but 13 per cent of the total number of articles treated, furnishes to the free list nearly 30 per cent of its subject-matter. In other words, there are proportionately more than twice as many chemical articles on the free list as there are of articles from the other schedules. To the extent that this great discrimination against the chemical industry has tended to injure that industry, the injury has been partly offset in the past by the placing on the free list of several of its important raw materials, more particularly the article here in question. If sulphuret of iron is now to be placed upon the dutiable list, the whole subject of the chemical schedules will have to be revised from that point of view, and in order to do justice a very considerable duty will have to be placed upon almost every article now free. Not only so, but the duties of the dutiable list will have to be raised, for the degree of protection accorded to the chemical articles that are protected is much inferior to that given as the average of the other schedules. Such a course would inevitably enhance the price of sulphuric acid and of all other chemicals made by the undersigned and other chemical manufacturers. It would increase the cost of all articles in which sulphuric acid enters largely. It would in particular raise the price of fertilizers and the cost of farming operations. It would tend to check the expansion of the chemical industry. The artificial encouragement by means of a protective tariff of the mining of pyrites in this country would mean a step backward in the policy of conserving the national resources.

It would tend to cause our own meager supplies of pyrites to be exhausted long before their time. It is doubtless good policy to encourage the use of our own natural resources where these are of vast extent, but it can not be wise, in the interest of the nation as a whole, to stimulate such consumption to a premature exhaustion where the natural supplies are meager. The General Chemical Company is able to look at this question in a disinterested way, since it not only imports but mines large quantities of the ores in question. We do not believe that it is good policy for us to exhaust rapidly our reserve supplies of these ores when we can get a large part of such supplies at reasonable prices from foreign countries. We submit that what is a wise policy for the conservation of natural resources for us in our smaller affairs would be an equally wise policy for the nation in its larger affairs.

The business of the General Chemical Company is more particularly that of heavy chemicals, such as sulphuric acid in its various forms, muriatic acid, nitric acid, acetic acid, sulphate of soda, alums, sulphate of alumina, phosphate of soda, and the like-articles of great bulk and selling at low prices, from a fraction of a cent to a few cents a pound, and all entering as constituents into the manufacture of other articles. The company has a list of several thousand customers on its books. Its principal interest in the contemplated revision of the tariff is that such a revision may be had as will conduce to the prosperity of these customers; and whether their prosperity shall require a higher or a lower tariff in particular cases, the General Chemical Company knows that it can not conduce to the pros

perity of manufacturers if sellers of acid should be compelled to raise the price of sulphuric acid by reason of a duty imposed on pyrites or other raw material.

SCHEDULE A.-Production, imports, and consumption of pyrites in the United

NOTE. The foregoing is an extract from "The Mineral Industry during 1907," Volume 16, edited by W. R. Ingalls, page 840.

SCHEDULE B.

The data given in the foregoing statement as to the relative number of articles on the free list and the dutiable list, comparing the tariff schedule generally with the chemical schedule alone, have been taken from a compilation of the Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of Statistics, known as "Schedule E, Classification of Merchandise, with Rates of Duty, etc."

GENERAL CHEMICAL COMPANY,
E. H. RISING, President.

THE PENNSYLVANIA SALT MANUFACTURING COMPANY., PHILADELPHIA, PA., OBJECTS TO THE PLACING OF A DUTY ON PYRITES ORE OR SULPHURET OF IRON.

PHILADELPHIA, November 11, 1908.

Hon. JOHN DALZELL, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: There is a report that the domestic producers of pyrites (used for making sulphuric acid) intend asking Congress to impose a duty upon foreign pyrites. Under the Dingley tariff and tariffs prior to 1897 pyrites is on the free list.

It would be an unfortunate occurrence to the sulphuric-acid manufacturers of the United States, and others, if this article should be made dutiable. We beg to submit the following facts showing why it should be continued on the free list.

The present annual production of sulphuric acid in the United States is about 3,500,000 tons. It is produced from pyrites, sulphur, zinc ore, and copper ore-from the two latter, because of the quantity of sulphur contained therein injuring farms nearby, it resolved itself into a question of stopping the smelting of ores or erecting acid works to utilize the escaping gases.

The quantity of foreign pyrites imported in the United States in 1907 was 700,000 short tons, averaging over 50 per cent sulphur. The quantity of domestic pyrites produced was 247,000 tons, averaging about 43 per cent sulphur.

The quantity of sulphuric acid, 50° Beaumé, produced from the above pyrites was about 2,150,000 short tons, the balance amounting to 1,350,000 tons, being made mostly from the sulphur in zinc and copper ores, the quantity of acid made from sulphur, pure, being comparatively small. The value of the acid produced is about $18,000,000 at factory.

The quality of foreign pyrites, particularly the Spanish, is much superior to any domestic pyrites thus far discovered. The market price is about $6 per ton for material containing 50 per cent sulphur, whereas the price of the domestic article is only $4.50 per ton for material containing 43 per cent sulphur.

The mines in the United States are meager, and from what we know it would be a physical impossibility for them to supply the needs of all the acid makers in the country. If they could supply more than stated above, viz, 247,000 out of a total consumption of 947,000 tons, they would have sufficient margin between $4.50 per ton for domestic ore and $6 for foreign, to pay handsomely.

The low price now ruling for sulphuric acid in the United States is due principally to the use of the fine quality of Spanish ore, which unquestionably is without a rival. To put a duty upon it would mean a corresponding increase in the price of acid, which would affect pretty much everything in the arts, since sulphuric acid is such an important factor in the majority of other manufactures. It enters into the composition or is used in almost every textile and metallic article made, besides being directly the base of the paper, glass, soap, and fertilizer trade.

Trusting, sir, that pyrites containing sulphur, suitable for the manufacture of sulphuric acid, will remain on the free list, and asking your attention to the exhaustive discussions on the subject before the Ways and Means Committee during the consideration of the Dingley tariff, and prior thereto, we remain,

Yours, very truly,

PENNSYLVANIA SALT MANUFACTURING COMPANY,
THEODORE ARMSTRONG, President.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES W. LEFLER IN ADVOCACY OF THE RETENTION OF PYRITES ORE ON THE FREE LIST.

FRIDAY, November 27, 1908.

Mr. GRIGGS. Are you a manufacturer?

Mr. LEFLER. No; I represent importers. It may be a work of supererogation anyway for me to say anything, because pyrites is now on the free list. We simply want it to remain there. The principal product of pyrites is sulphuric acid, and it is used as a basis for fertilizers. It constitutes the basis of all artificial fertilizers. It is therefore of importance to the farmers, who are a principal element in the country.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you a brief there?

Mr. LEFLER. No; I have not.

The CHAIRMAN. That comes in with chemicals used for the purpose of fertilizers, and it is free, is it not?