Mr. MEYERCORD. I find that I have skipped a number of years, but the importations were $3,968,000 in 1907 and $4,911,000 in 1908. The CHAIRMAN. What proportion of that is used by the manufacturers?

Mr. MEYERCORD. The manufacturers and jobbers consume practically all of it.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not care about the jobbers. I want to find out about the manufacturers, what proportion of this product they

consume.

Mr. MEYERCORD. I venture to say that they consume 90 per cent of it.

The CHAIRMAN. So that the general heavy increase you propose would necessitate a readjustment of the tariff duties to the manufacturers who use the same article, providing they have not any more than a sufficient protection now?

Mr. MEYERCORD. This is a widespread industry. There is a multitude of small consumers; about 350 factories.

The CHAIRMAN. They sell wholesale. Take the crockery people. We have already heard some rumbles from them on what they have to pay now.

Mr. MEYERCORD. Yes, sir. They receive a protection of 30 per cent on color and 35 per cent on paper, and there is a very large differential against us-of nearly 20 per cent. We have to pay a premium to do business in our own country.

The CHAIRMAN. The crockery people receive 60 per cent protection?

Mr. MEYERCORD. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. They say that they do not receive over 30 per cent on an honest valuation?

Mr. MEYERCORD. That is up to them; I am not knocking them. The CHAIRMAN. I am only telling you what they claim. I am not a crockery man. You have not considered the effect on the other industries?

Mr. MEYERCORD. It would be very small, Mr. Chairman; and, furthermore, it is a luxury; and if the manufacturer, for instance, who pays

The CHAIRMAN (interrupting). The manufacture of crockery is hardly a luxury.

Mr. MEYERCORD. That is a different article. I am talking about the lithographic label used for advertising. He can use other means, but if he desires a lithographic label he can adopt it as a matter of pride, as representative of a higher class of stuff that he has put out as an advertisement.

The CHAIRMAN. Where did you get your prices of labor?

Mr. MEYERCORD. From statistics in signed letters from manufacturers abroad, giving the rate they pay.

The CHAIRMAN. Please file them with the committee.

Mr. MEYERCORD. I have some copies and some originals. I will file the originals with the committee.

The CHAIRMAN. We will print the copies in the hearing and have the originals for the use of the committee.

Mr. MEYERCORD. Yes, sir. It is a national industry. For instance, out in Indiana we have a good many manufacturers. We have three or four in Indianapolis. We have some Down East-in New England.

St. Louis is very well represented. The State of Missouri has 15 or 20 factories, and there are manufacturers down in Texas, in the Carolinas, in Georgia, and in Louisiana. They are scattered from ocean to ocean.

The CHAIRMAN. The manufacturers have been able to get some profit in the past?

Mr. MEYERCORD. You must understand, Mr. Chairman, that there is a large part of this business that is orders for original designs and must be delivered quicker, hence impossible to import; but on duplicate orders where six months' time can be given the importer competes. It is on this duplicate order business or the staple end of the game that the importer is now getting very much the better of the American manufacturer.

The CHAIRMAN. You must get more than that or the amount of the American production would not be so large.

Mr. MEYERCORD. The domestic production of color lithography has decreased and imports have increased about 1,000 per cent under the Dingley law.

The CHAIRMAN. The increase is taken from the figures you have quoted?

Mr. MEYERCORD. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. There is a large increase?

Mr. MEYERCORD. Wages are 41 per cent of the total cost of American manufacture. We require as a differential for labor, protection of 31 per cent, for the difference in labor alone. On the material or our raw product the average duty is about 40 per cent. That raw material is 50 per cent of our cost of manufacture. Thus we require a protection of 40 per cent on this 50 per cent, or 20 per cent net differential, to cover difference in cost of our raw material. We therefore require 50 per cent net protection to really be on a freetrade basis in our own home market.

The CHAIRMAN. Please file a statement of the principal materials you use, the percentage compared with the whole amount used-by dollars, not by quantity.

Mr. MEYERCORD. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. The different classes of material.

Mr. MEYERCORD. We have that all figured out now.

Mr. BOUTELL. How much of this entire production consists of the illuminated postal cards, Christmas cards, Easter cards, etc.? Mr. MEYERCORD. Of the imports, approximately $2,000,000. Mr. BOUTELL. How much is the domestic production? Mr. MEYERCORD. Not one-quarter of that.

Mr. BOUTELL. The reason I asked that question was because wherever I see these illuminated postal cards they say, "Made in Munich " or "Made in Nuremberg."

Mr. MEYERCORD. Yes, sir. That is a product that is only paying about 14 per cent. I will illustrate to you how that is arrived at. For instance: The German manufacturer makes for the German. French, or English market a series of 40 pictures. He puts the German lettering on those for the German market. He can then give these plates a slight alteration by changing the wording suitable to the American market and print up a limited quantity and ship to America; thus naming a price eliminating the cost of the plates. which may have cost four times as much as the bill of printed paper

is worth. Yet the American manufacturer would of necessity had to pay for the plates, and that is where the erroneous valuation of import invoices comes in.

Mr. BOUTELL. What I am trying to get at is, where a man in Munich makes a large series of postal cards-views of Pittsburg, Chicago, and other cities-how does he get his photographs? Do they pay any duty on entering Germany?

Mr. MEYERCORD. No; he can enter them by saying that they are for foreign work.

Mr. BOUTELL. What I want to get at is whether the German can get all the material for making the postal cards into Germany free? Mr. MEYERCORD. Yes, sir; they are admitted for export work free. Mr. BOUTELL. Then they send the postal cards back and we pay the full duty on them?

Mr. MEYERCORD. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. If we can collect here the ad valorem duty on a fair valuation of those goods, would the protection under the present law be somewhere near adequate?

Mr. MEYERCORD. No, sir; absolutely not. There is 31 per cent differential right on the wages in favor of the foreign manufacturer at this moment.

The CHAIRMAN. I say on a fair valuation.

Mr. MEYERCORD. You can really say it is a fair valuation on the cost of printing.

The CHAIRMAN. Suppose the valuation was fixed at the wholesale price in this country?

Mr. MEYERCORD. That is a peculiar situation in the industry. A man can use these plates that he has on stone and print up a job for one-quarter of what they can be made for across the street even in Germany, just because he has already received pay for the plates or engravings from another customer. The plate is the pattern, and if a man has the pattern he can go ahead and make up the cards for almost nothing, but if he has to make the pattern then he has an awful job before him.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the same with all manufacturers.

Mr. MEYERCORD. The plate is what brings the valuation erroneously so very low, and even at the specific duty paid there is only 19 per cent protection under the Dingley law. The hearings on the Dingley law would indicate that this product was to get more than twice that. That was the intent, but the importers were so much better posted that the schedule was made to suit them, and the thing has worked out until the American manufacturer receives only about 19 per cent protection.

The CHAIRMAN. The statistics seem to show, aside from the postalcard business, which you say is about $2,000,000, that you have not been driven entirely out of the market.

Mr. MEYERCORD. But you must understand that there are photograph postals and various other processes than lithograph postals. The most expensive postals get the same protection that the other types receive. The consequence is that the postal-card industry on high-class colored stuff is all German make. The cheaper grades of picture work are made here. The lithographer requires on postal cards about 30 per cent additional protection to put him on an equality or free trade basis in his own home market.

The CHAIRMAN. Which is used by the manufacturers, the highclass work or the low-class work?

Mr. MEYERCORD. That depends on the taste of the fellow.

The CHAIRMAN. What proportion of high-class work is used by the manufacturers?

Mr. MEYERCORD. They buy the best.

The CHAIRMAN. So that all that is used by the manufacturers is the high-class work?

Mr. MEYERCORD. Usually. It depends on whether the manufacturer is selling high-class goods.

The CHAIRMAN. Practically all?

Mr. MEYERCORD. Yes, sir.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Is there anything in the quality of the imported article that gives it an advantage over your article?

Mr. MEYERCORD. No, sir. There are manufacturers in this country who make the finest there is in the world.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. There is no superiority in point of work or quality in the imported article?

Mr. MEYERCORD. No, sir; except in the ability of the American salesman in competing at a disadvantage to induce the customer to allow him to cheapen the plates so that he can get in on the deal.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Are there any manufacturers or consumers in this country who buy the foreign article because it is made abroad? Mr. MEYERCORD. Yes, sir. That is according to the ability of the salesman of the importer to convince him that it is better.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. You want the tariff high enough so as to practically compel them to buy American goods?

Mr. MEYERCORD. Give us free trade in our own home market. That is all we want and we will lick him.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. If you had the increase in the schedule of tariff you ask for it would probably prohibit the importation of any foreign product, would it?

Mr. MEYERCORD. We want free trade in our home market; that is all we want. I am a free trader above the 51 per cent basis.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. You say that the importer of the foreign product in this market has actually the same footing as you under existing conditions?

Mr. MEYERCORD. He has a better footing by 25 per cent.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. And yet, notwithstanding that, you control about 85 per cent of all the product?

Mr. MEYERCORD. No, sir. Of colored work about 50 per cent. There is a great amount of work that is not produced abroad, the letterheading work.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. The total amount of the production in 1905 was $25,000,000.

Mr. MEYERCORD. Yes, sir.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. And the total importations were about $4,000,000. So it seems from your statement that you have almost a monopoly of the market and that you are not at such a disadvantage?

Mr. MEYERCORD. That is one way of looking at it. The imports under paragraph 400 alone were $5.000.000 European value. Under paragraphs 398 and 407 several million additional arrived at Eu

ropean value. You must take the American market price. Last year it must have amounted to $11,000,000 or $12,000,000.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. You stated that the importations under the Dingley tariff law had increased 1,000 per cent.

Mr. MEYERCORD. Yes, sir.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Has the domestic production increased 1,000 per cent?

Mr. MEYERCORD. It has stood still practically.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Has there not been an enormous increase in the issue of these prints during the last several years?

Mr. MEYERCORD. In the twelve years of the Dingley law American lithograph production has advanced possibly 20 per cent. All of it on noncompetitive quick delivery work. On the imported product 1,000 per cent at the same time under the Dingley law.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. At the time that the Dingley law was enacted the importations were of necessity very small?

Mr. MEYERCORD. Because we had reasonable protection. We had larger protection under the Wilson-Gorman Act.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. The rates were higher under the Wilson-Gorman Act than under the Dingley law?

Mr. MEYERCORD. Yes, sir.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Paragraph 400 is manifestly a very complicated one?

Mr. MEYERCORD. Yes, sir.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. It has been in operation for nearly twelve years? Mr. MEYERCORD. Yes, sir.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. I presume all of its provisions have been applied and interpreted so that there is practically no uncertainty about it now?

Mr. MEYERCORD. No, sir.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. And decisions have been made covering practically every provision?

Mr. MEYERCORD. Yes, sir.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. So although the decisions may not be satisfactory to you the questions have been settled?

Mr. MEYERCORD. Yes, sir.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. And if the changes you suggest should be made it would open up a new field of controversy which would probably take ten years to settle?

Mr. MEYERCORD. No, sir. We have gotten it to a point where all questions will rest on just about three general propositions.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. Would it not be better if Congress decided to increase the rates of tariff, to simply increase the rates provided in the Dingley law than to enact a lot of new provisions?

Mr. MEYERCORD. They are not new provisions. There are very few changes, and if you submit this suggested amendment to the law division of the customs bureau I venture to say that they will report that every suggestion that we have made tends to clarify the atmosphere on paragraph 400.

Mr. CRUMPACKER. I have no further questions.

The CHAIRMAN. There are 49 names of gentlemen on the list to be heard to-day. Mr. Meyercord has presented his case very fully and given facts very fully covering the whole case, and I want to know if

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