PARAGRAPHS 230-232-BARLEY. There remains but one more point that I wish to make, and that is that a tariff rate of 30 cents per bushel on barley is out of all proportion with the rates on other grains. In any revision of the tariff schedules the rate on barley should be reduced; if it should be deemed expedient that this commodity should not be on the free list, then I submit that ten cents per bushel would be more than ample to maintain any parity on any possible fluctuation in prices; and that such a rate would be productive of revenue. We in central New York are vitally interested in and will be materially benefited by your favorable consideration of our request for a revision of Schedule G by placing the grains on the free list or granting substantial reductions as I have indicated. All of which is respectfully submitted. GENEVA, N. Y. C. H. MCLAUGHLIN. STATEMENT OF RYAN BROS. ON PEARL BARLEY. Hon. OSCAR W. UNDERWOOD, JAMESVILLE, N. Y., January 17, 1913. Chairman Ways and Means Committee, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: We take this opportunity of submitting a few facts with reference to the revision of the tariff on pearl barley, in Schedule G of the present tariff law, relative to agricultural products. Pearled barley consists of barley with the hull taken off, and is used principally in the large eastern cities. Nos. 3 and 4, which is the principal product, sells in the New York market for $2.25 per hundredweight. It takes 4 bushels of barley to make 100 pounds of pearl barley. This 4 bushels of barley also makes 90 pounds of feed, worth at present $1; total from 4 bushels of barley, $3.25. Barley delivered from Buffalo at our mills costs 65 cents per bushel. Total cost of 4 bushels.. Cost of manufacture 100 pounds pearl barley with steam power.. Freight.. Bag.. Total...... Leaving a profit of one-tenth of a cent per pound or 10 cents per hundredweight. Competition comes from Germany; the Germans can undersell us, not only because barley, labor, and machinery are cheaper, but principally because the outside of the barley, which is used for feed here, is sold for flour there, at much higher prices than here, and used for making bread by the peasants. There are about 10 barley mills in the United States capable of making enough pearl barley in three or four months to supply the home trade for a year. There is no pearl barley exported to speak of. You can readily see, from the profit above stated and the capacity of home mills, that competition in this country is very sharp and that a little competition from Germany would wipe out all of the profit there is to the manufacturer at present. There were formerly six mills in Onondaga County. Two are closed, two at Fayetteville, N. Y., burned down and have never been rebuilt, and two are running on part time, viz, our mills at Jamesville, N. Y., and the Smith Mills at Marcellus Falls, PARAGRAPH 237-MACARONI. N. Y. American barley only is used for pearling. It will not help us any to take the tariff off of barley, and the farmer can not afford to raise barley in this country for less than 65 cents per bushel. Under the Wilson bill the tariff was reduced to 30 per cent ad valorem, or about one-half cent per pound, which had a ruinous effect on our trade. The present tariff is 2 cents per pound, and affords us ample protection from German competition. We believe that no one complains that pearl barley is too high. The profit fluctuates from nothing to one-half cent per pound, which is not too much. We hope for no tariff change. RYAN BROS., Jamesville, N. Y. Respectfully, PARAGRAPH 233. Broom corn, three dollars per ton. PARAGRAPH 234. Buckwheat, fifteen cents per bushel of forty-eight pounds; buckwheat flour, twenty-five per centum ad valorem. PARAGRAPH 235. Corn or maize, fifteen cents per bushel of fifty-six pounds. PARAGRAPH 236. Corn meal, forty cents per one hundred pounds. PARAGRAPH 237. Macaroni, vermicelli, and all similar preparations, one and one-half cents per pound. MACARONI. TESTIMONY OF F. E. RULING, MACARONI MANUFACTURERS' ASSOCIATION, CLEVELAND, OHIO. The witness was duly sworn by the chairman. The CHAIRMAN. You will please state your name to the stenographer. Mr. RULING. My name is F. E. Ruling, and I represent the Macaroni Manufacturers' Association, of Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I appear before you in behalf of the National Macaroni Manufacturers' Association in the place of Mr. G. F. Argetsinger, who was scheduled to speak before you. We received a telegram stating that Mr. Argetsinger was compelled to undergo a slight operation, incapacitating him; and, if agreeable to you gentlemen, I will take his place. To start with, I wish to impress upon you the willingness on the part of the manufacturers of macaroni and myself to answer all questions that may be put to us to the best of our ability, and request that you bear with us in our appeal to maintain at least the present rate of duty on macaroni of 14 cents per pound. We have prepared a brief which was filed with the clerk of your committee, but, in addition to it, we feel it our duty to elaborate on a few points in order that we may make clear to you the necessity of maintaining at least the present rate of duty. In the first place, ours is an industry that is not controlled by any trust or combination. Each one of the manufacturers that I represent markets his product as he sees fit, and you can rest assured that it is on a highly competitive basis; so you can see the dealer and consumer are untrammeled in their purchases. Neither do the American manufacturers enjoy a paternal government, such as exists in Italy. If you will refer to Daily Consular and Trade Reports PARAGRAPH 237-MACARONI. of April 7, 1909, you will find therein a lengthy and concise report on the favorable conditions under which the Italian macaroni manufacturers operate. You will see that the Italian manufacturer, during the period of 1907, 1908, 1909, exported an annual average of 88,000,000 pounds of macaroni to this country, or, in other words, they sent to the United States four-fifths of all the macaroni that was exported from Italy. You will also note that they paid to the United States Government only $1,300,000 duty, notwithstanding that the Italian Government paid the Italian miller $760,000 in cash as a drawback for having been enterprising enough to export so much of their product in the finished state as macaroni to these shores. At this point it will be well to note that the Italian millers-to be correct-eight-tenths of them are the macaroni manufacturers of Italy. Another burden we have to bear, which, however, we are willing to, is the great cost of marketing our product. By reason of the vast amount of macaroni being imported into this country we are compelled to advertise extensively-this to overcome the prejudice that is found in favor of imported products. In conjunction with this method of introduction each plant maintains a large force of salesmen, who travel all over the country. I believe it is needless for me to go on with a long recital of the cost of doing business our way. These conditions would be bearable and only to be expected if we wish to sell our wares were it not, however, for the fact that our efforts to do business on a profitable basis are frustrated from time to time by large importations to this country sent on a consignment basis. This usually happens when foreign countries are overstocked and therefore anxious to dispose of their product at reduced figures. We are always subject to the unfair competition engendered by the fact that 50 per cent of the macaroni shipped into this country is on a consignment basis. It has been said that American macaroni manufacturers can not produce as good a macaroni as they do in Europe. We wish to dispute this statement. Our plants, as a rule, are well equipped and ably managed. We can obtain the proper materials in this country for the production of a high-grade product, and you can rely upon the American manufacturer duplicating in quality a macaroni equal to any imported. Of course, we must be encouraged to do so by the Government maintaining a duty sufficiently high enough to bar unfair foreign competition. The United States is one of the largest wheat-producing countries in the world. Our Department of Agriculture is continuously educating the American farmer in the raising of that staple, and, for the past number of years, has been giving special attention to durum or macaroni wheat. That we are improving the quality of this grade of wheat is borne out by the fact that, when the European macaroni manufacturers can not get farina from Roumania or Russia, they are mighty glad to turn to us for their supply; but it is well to note that they only favor us when the market is short in Europe. From information given me by friends of mine that have visited Italy, I am led to believe that the sanitary conditions under which we operate in this country surpass those on the other side. I need PARAGRAPH 237-MACARONI. not dwell on this question. You know, gentlemen, what is being done along those lines by our various State and Federal Government legislators. Let us now view the question of the cost of labor. We understand from reliable authority that one franc or one lire is equal in purchasing power to the American dollar. We also understand that an expert macaroni pressman gets two to three francs or 40 to 60 cents per day as wages. We pay our pressmen in this country from $10 to $16 per week, or over 663 per cent more than the European manufacturers. Our working hours are also much shorter. Our brief will show that we are at a disadvantage to the tune of 33 to 50 per cent. We are also subject to the various State laws as to the matter of employing labor. In some States the working hours have been cut down from 5 to 10 per cent; minors and females are not permitted to work any overtime, while our competitor, the Italian manufacturer, employs mostly women and children. We wish further to call your attention to the fact that the European macaroni manufacturers and importers are perfectly satisfied with the present duty. I do not wonder at it; when we take note of the steady increase in the imported article. To show their disinclination, to stir up the question, you have but to refer to statement made by Louis J. Scaranelli, who represents one of the largest importers of macaroni; P. Pastene & Co., of New York and Boston. They import 1,500,000 boxes per year. He said, before a previous committee, "By rights, we want to protect the manufacturers of this country and ask that no increase of duty shall be made." You will find this statement on page 3609 of Tariff Hearings, Schedule G, 1908. In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I wish to ask your committee to recommend that the present rate of duty of 13 cents per pound be continued. We would appreciate an increase of one-half cent per pound or 2 cents per pound if we could get it. MEMORIAL OF THE ITALIAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE IN NEW YORK. Hon. O. C. UNDERWOOD, Chairman Ways and Means Committee, Washington, D. C. SIR: The readjustment of the duties on several articles included in Schedule G, which, being articles of food, are so identified with the cost of living, is, together with that of other indispensable commodities, one of the principal objects of the present revision of the tariff, aiming at the relief of the hardships experienced of late years by the less fortunate classes of our population through the high cost of the dire necessities of life. The bearing of the tariff upon the material welfare of the masses, for the most part composed of people of small means and limited earning capacity, has become the more important since the remarkable increase in the cost of many necessities, through the fact that production has not in this country kept pace with the demand, while discomfort has been further accentuated by those combinations of interests controlling the market of various commodities, that, illegitimate as they are, in the spirit of the constitutional laws governing a democratic community as ours, based upon equality of rights and opportunity for all men, is, however, impossible to prevent or eliminate by direct legislation, which, elaborate as it may be framed, will always leave loopholes whereby the spirit if not the letter of the law may be noncomplied with and can effectually be avoided only by creating such conditions of economic environment that will render impossible combinations of interests to the benefit of a few and to the detriment of the many. PARAGRAPH 237-MACARONI. At any rate the tariff should not be made, as it has been during the last 15 years, the instrumentality whereby the consumer was practically deprived of the right to draw for the prime necessities of life from the best available sources of the world. While it must be recognized that it is wise to maintain a certain measure of protection on those domestic articles which enjoy the benefits of a competitive supply, it is not wise to protect indiscriminately and in the measure at present accorded, those articles which, under the specious argument of protection, are taken out of the field of competition. Let this factor enter in a greater measure into the economic life of the Nation and American endeavor will prove again equal to its traditions in meeting the conditions of a freer and less artificious economic fabric than exists at present, fostered by privileged class legislation, of which the excessive duties now obtaining on many necessities, are an exponent. New factors have, during the last 15 years, in which the high protective rates have prevailed, come into operation in our national economic life, such as the notable immigration from southern Europe, which has developed a demand for a number of food products originating from their respective countries, products of a characteristic type, such as can not be produced in this country, or are not yet produced in the quantity required by consumption; the increase in the consumption of domestic food, due to the increase of population and the increase in the consumption per capita, owing to the constant improvement in the standard of life of our people, with which increase production has not kept apace, as witnessed by the decrease in the exportation of many staples of life, the development in the methods of preservation of many foods, which, under a less regulated system, would be abundant at certain times of the year and scarce in others, and which has stimulated the concentration, in comparatively few hands, of their handling and marketing, maintaining high prices even when the public could reasonably expect moderate prices by reason of the abundance of the supply, and provoking sharp increases of prices under less favorable conditions of the supply; all circumstances these which should find their counterbalancing in a freer and more competitive condition of the market. Hence the importance of lightening duties on commodities that are indispensable in livelihood, and of eliminating a system of protection that is not only superfluous to domestic production, but dearly paid for by the large majority of the people, and which only goes to the benefit of a restricted number of producers and distributors. Nor should the correlation often existing between certain imported food articles and the consumption of domestic food products be overlooked, as certain imported articles prove of valuable assistance and stimulus to the consumption of other important domestic products. This country, with its vast agricultural resources and great natural advantages, able to produce all kinds of commodities obtainable in temperate and subtropical climates, with unsurpassable facilities in means of transportation, with technical knowledge and skill highly developed, with educational advantages within easy reach of all, with the lessons of the experience of other nations to profit from, without inherited prejudices to fight against, or past errors to remedy, enjoys in all lines of husbandry, but especially in the production of the staples of life, a preeminence in which she is not equaled by any other. What is desirable is intensification of endeavor and method, prevention of waste, more direct contact between producer and consumer, but as well talk of carrying coal to Newcastle as of any need of protection to the American husbandman, whose record in bringing forth plentifully the gifts of mother earth, in feeding other nations besides her own, is of world-wide recognition, and whose balance sheet is probably the most satisfactory that can be shown to the credit of any class of citizens in our community, certainly enabling him not to trouble himself with the seven lean cows of Joseph's dream. One of the forceful arguments why duties on many food products should be lightenep is the fact that their cost has, through the inevitable working of the law of supply and demand, increased notably of late years in the countries of production, which therefore lessens any possible danger of competition to domestic production. Another, no less important, is the increase of freights that has generally taken place in imported merchandise, at a rate varying from 50 to 75 per cent. Enumerated as we have the remarkable changes that have taken place during the last 15 years in the conditions of the food demand and supply, explained the position of the foreign supply in its relation to the needs of this country, it is apparent that duties upon these commodities should adapt themselves to the changed circumstances that have intervened, and are only justified as a measure for raising revenue, in which case less burdensome rates should prevail. And, on these premises, it behooves this |