PARAGRAPH 240-BICE. by leaps and bounds, and we are only getting one-half the revenue that we got 12 or 13 years ago. Mr. BREAUX. In that document you have, does it show where this rice goes to, the points it goes to? Mr. HARRISON. No; it does not. Mr. BREAUX. Because it might mean Hawaii, Porto Rico, and other such places? Mr. HARRISON. No; these are exports to countries outside of our tariff wall, where we compete with the nations of the world. Mr. FORDNEY. Do you not export largely to Cuba? Mr. LONGWORTH. You have no doubt observed the tender solicitude the gentleman from New York (Mr. Harrison) expresses for revenue, and yet he is one of the gentlemen who wanted to put sugar on the free list. Let me ask you what you think would be the effect on the present prosperity of Louisiana by putting rice and sugar on the free list? Mr. FORDNEY. Yes; and especially with the boll weevil breaking out now and then. Mr. LONGWORTH. Well, leaving the boll weevil out of consideration. Mr. BREAUX. I would rather leave out sugar. While I love the sugar people and all that, I came here to represent the rice growers. Mr. LONGWORTH. You surely have some idea of the effect if rice and sugar were put on the free list and do not come here willing to have sugar go on the free list and your own industry protected? Mr. BREAUX. Well, we believe there should be a duty on rice and also on sugar; that the sugar people should have protection, too. But I am here in behalf of the rice growers, and it will cost me trouble enough to represent them, will it not? Mr. LONGWORTH. That may be. You can hardly come before this committee on tariff and ask to have a protective duty maintained on rice unless you also consider that the State of Louisiana needs a revenue and protective duty on sugar. Mr. BREAUX. There is no question about that. In other words, we need to be consistent, and we are consistent. Mr. LONGWORTH. Yes. What effect on the prosperity of the State of Louisiana would the taking off of the duty on sugar and rice have? Mr. BREAUX. I believe that the industries of sugar and rice are united in Louisiana, or would be affected so seriously that they might just as well be united, that if the duty were taken off the State of Louisiana would be in a state of distress such as has not been known since the Civil War, because we all know that in the northern part of Louisiana these lands are being turned into rice as fast as possible, and we know that in western Louisiana in certain territories, where Mr. Pujo is, for instance, that the lands there have been developed to bloom like the rose and land values have gone up in leaps and bounds, because the rice came in. Now, although we think those lands will raise anything, rice is really about the only crop that we can be sure of, and as a matter of fact conditions for the last two years have started rice on the road to prosperity, and we want those conditions maintained. PARAGRAPH 240-RICE. Mr. LONGWORTH. Can you tell me what the retail price of rice in Europe is ? Mr. BREAUX. No; I can not say. I know that if the New York price is 5 cents the European price is 34 cents, which is the New York price less 2 cents per pound duty. Mr. FORDNEY. I have some recent figures on prices in European countries which show that rice ranges from 5 cents to 15 cents per pound, retail. Mr. BREAUX. That makes my argument all the better. Let us increase this crop; let us continue our present development, or the development that we hope to have; let us make this crop 6,000,000 instead of 3,000,000, and then the lands that we have can be opened up to further development. Mr. FORDNEY. Isn't it true that the price of rice to the consumer in this country has materially gone down since we have had a protective duty on rice, and don't you think home production has lowered the price to the consumer and that home production has been stimulated by the tariff? Mr. BREAUX. Yes, sir; rice is selling for less to-day in the market than it used to. The result has been that when the duty was put on we increased production and then we reduced the price. Mr. HARRISON. If you reduce revenues, you reduce protection incidentally with the revenue. Mr. LONGWORTH. Aren't the revenues higher to-day than they were under the lower duty? Under the Wilson tariff bill, where the duty is lower than it is now, the revenues at the highest point under that tariff were lower than they are to-day? Mr. BREAUX. I think you are correct. Mr. HARRISON. But three years later, in 1899, they were twice as much as they are now. Mr. PAYNE. If you will take the statistics furnished by the committee, on page 225, you will find that the duties from revenue collections on rice for the years 1896, 1905, 1910, 1911, 1912, taking all the calculations-cleaned rice, uncleaned rice, rice paddy, rice flour, and total rice, rice flour, etc. you will see that the revenues have largely increased from what they were in 1896, or 1905, and I think you ought to add that to your brief in this case, in view of the question asked by my colleague, which includes only two or three kinds and might be misleading on that point. When the committee comes to decide on the revenue under this bill they will find that they are getting much larger revenue than they were getting under the former duty. Mr. HARRISON. If my colleague will excuse me, I included the only two kinds of rice of any commercial importance, cleaned and uncleaned. The other two-paddy rice, which is insignificant, and brewer's rice, or rice flour-and the figures which I gave to the witness include all that may be commercially known as rice. Mr. PAYNE. Rice flour, Table 240, page 225-the duties collected in 1896 were $172,000; in 1905, $162,000; in 1910, $357,000; in 1911, $330,000, and in 1912, $291,000. Then you come down to total rice, rice flour, and so forth, and that gives the duty by taking the PARAGRAPH 240-RICE. tables, 1896, $983,000; 1905, $797,000; 1910, $1,458,000; 1911, $1,381,000; 1912, $1,232,000. You will find that in Table 240. That seems to be the whole thing. Mr. HILL. I find that the foreign value of the imported rice is about double this last year, 75 per cent more in preceding years than the figure you have just stated you sell your rice for in Louisiana. Why is that? Is it a different article? Mr. BREAUX, No; it is not a different article. Mr. HILL. Do they compete, and, if so, how can they compete with the foreign importations at double what you sell yours for? Mr. BREAUX. I do not construe it that way. Mr. HILL. In 1896 the value of the imported rice was 2.9, which is practically 3 cents; in 1910, it is 3.10; in 1911, 3.2; in 1912, 3.7. You say you sold your rice for 93 cents a bushel, which is practically 2 cents a pound. Mr. BREAUX. That was in the rough. Mr. HILL. Well, rice in the rough was 2.3 cents in 1905, 2.4 cents in 1910, 2.6 cents in 1911, and 3.3 cents last year, landed in New York without the payment of the duty, 50 to 100 per cent higher than you say you sell your rice for. Now, where is the competition? Mr. BREAUX. Except as I say, when I talk about 93 cents, I mean per bushel; I mean a bushel unhulled, on the plantation, and when you talk about 3.7 cents imported, you mean cleaned, the manufactured product. Mr. HILL. No; I mean rice, uncleaned, or free of the outer hull, but having the inner cuticle on it. Mr. BREAUX. In that condition, our rice sells for about 4 cents. That is hulled rice. Mr. HILL. How can there be a difference of 2 cents a pound in simply hulling it? Mr. BREAUX. That is on account of the loss in weight. You take a bushel of rice, which weighs 45 pounds, and you do not get but about 28 or 30 pounds of hulled rice from it. The other 15 pounds is chaff, polish, bran, and the by-products, which are worth very much less money. So when you take a bushel of rice and mill it you lose from 5 to 30 per cent. Mr. HILL. And so you add about one-third to the price, so it would be about 2 beyond imported rice, which last year was 2.3. It seems to me you are underselling the foreign market now without any duty. Mr. BREAUX. We do not understand ourselves, because when we talk about the bushel price, and those are the figures I gave, I am speaking about the rice in the rough state; you are speaking about the finished product. The prices that you gave me, as I understand it, and the prices the importers quote us are on a basis of 3.7 cents, and that is the manufactured rice. Mr. HILL. Then it is not because it is a different quality; it is actually a competing article? Mr. BREAUX. Yes, sir. Mr. HULL. It is true, is it not, that the consumer pays about twice as much for our annual output as the raiser or grower gets for it in the first place? PARAGRAPH 240-RICE. Mr. BREAUX. I think that is a fair statement. Mr. HULL. Then, if the distribution was more direct and economical the consumer would pay a great deal less and the farmer would get just as much money? Mr. BREAUX. Yes, sir. The following documents were filed by the witness: EXHIBIT A. The following resolutions were adopted at a meeting of the Louisiana & Texas Rice Millers' Association, held at Houston, on January 10, 1913. Moved by Mr. Paul Pritchard and seconded by Mr. Neuhouse, that the rice committee, consisting of J. E. Broussard, W. P. H. McFaddin, and W. E. Trotter, being sent to Washington, be instructed not to ask for any changes on the import tariff on brewers' rice. Moved by Mr. Paul Pritchard and seconded by Mr. Davis, that the rice committee, consisting of J. E. Broussard, W. P. H. McFaddin, and W. E. Trotter, being sent to Washington, be instructed not to ask for any changes on the import tariff on rice of any kind. LOUISIANA & TEXAS RICE MILLERS' & DISTRIBUTORS' ASSOCIATION. J. E. BROUSSARD, President. [Copy of resolution adopted at a meeting of the Louisiana & Texas Rice Millers' & Distributors Association, held in the city of Houston, Texas, January 10, 1913.] Be it resolved, That the committee being sent to Washington, D. C., to appear before the Ways and Means Committee, in behalf of the millers and distributors' of Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, be instructed not to ask for any change in the schedule effecting the tariff on imported brewers' rice. A true copy. J. R. LEGUENEC, Secretary. EXHIBIT B.-Brief of the Rice Association of America. [Represented by its president, S. Locke Breaux, covering a membership of 1,234 members, every one of whom is a farmer or a raiser of rice.] The present protective tariff enjoyed by the rice industry of this country: Broken rice, which will pass through a sieve, commercially known as No. 12 wire sieve, per pound, one-fourth cent; cleaned rice, 2 cents; flour and rice meal rice, one-fourth cent; ground or granulated rice, one-fourth cent; Hawaiian rice, broken, free; hull rice ashes, as unenumerated manufactured article, 10 per cent; Japan, as unclean, 14 cents; rice, may be cleaned in bonded warehouse, act March 24, 1874, in force, three-fourths cent; patne rice, per pound, 2 cents. Taken from general tariff law now in operation, enacted by act of Congress July 24, 1897, has made possible its development in the coastal territory of Louisiana and Texas and its further development now along the Mississippi River in North Louisiana and in the prairie belt of the State of Arkansas. Where 20 years ago were cattle ranges and open prairie lands, a wild and undeveloped territory, is to-day a section of farms, cities, and manufacturing enterprises, all of which have come about through the development of the rice industry. There are estimated farm lands one and one-half million acres, of which 650,000 are in actual cultivation. There are canal and pumping plants, 157, added to which are estimated 500 farms irrigated by wells; acreage prior to tariff, none of record; acreage 1908, 655,600; rice mills, 74. Added to this value is work stock, implements, and improvements; further, cities, of which Crowley, Gueydan, and Jennings are types in Louisiana and Bay City, Eĺ Campo, Eagle Lake, Ganado, and Markham are types in Texas, these cities being exclusively rice towns. The foregoing gives us an aggregate investment, due entirely to rice, of, say, 200,000,000, all directly dependent upon the culture of rice, that brings to the farmer from 18,000,000 to 20,000,000 annually for his product, and in the turnover from the time that the product leaves farm until it gets to the consumer a further profit of PARAGRAPH 240-RICE. 20,000,000 goes to the middlemen; that is, the transportation lines, rice mills, jobbers, and distributors generally. We contend that an industry so vast as this and contributing so largely to the material welfare, in a broad sense applying to all sections of the country, that to ask the American agriculturist, and from him on up through the different variations of American labor who handle rice, to ask them to put their industry on a basis where they will have to compete with the rice of the Asiatic countries is to invite and bring about annihilation of the industry. It is a fact, as has been shown by the investigation of the Department of Agriculture, that the rice produced in British India and Burmah is on a family basis; that is, there is no wage paid, and after the needs of the family are taken out in rice that whatever surplus there is is dumped on the market and sold for what it will bring. It is a further matter of fact that, in the matter of transportation, foreign bottoms going to the Orient and returning either to the Continent or to this country, will bring rice at an incredibly low rate of freight, putting it into our seaports at from 20 to 25 cents per 100 pounds. In contradistinction to this, it costs us to the Atlantic seaboard from our outports 30 to 40 cents per 100 pounds, and to the Pacific coast 55 cents per 100 pounds. In order that the committee may be advised as to the cost of producing rice in these United States, we submit typical statement showing what it costs to produce rice: Taking the average cost of farms farmed during the past five years by the North American Land & Timber Co., of Lake Charles, amounting in the aggregate to over some 5,000 acres, it is found that the cost is as follows: Seeding and rolling and seed, per acre.. Cutting and shocking, per acre... Looking after water and crop, 90 days in summer, per acre. Threshing, sacks, and hauling to warehouse, per acre.. Cost of loading rough rice on the cars, insurance, storage, and warehouse, per acre.. Cost to the farmer for water, per acre, about... Interest on mules, farming machinery, and land, per acre.. Total...... $2.00 .75 2.50 1.80 2.00 4.00 .75 5.50 4.00 1.00 24.30 We further present several statements just as they come to us from the farmer, and, under average conditions, it will be observed that the total cost runs from $21 to $30 per acre. We bring attention to the fact that labor to-day on farms gets $1.50 average per work day, as against $1 per man 10 years ago, not to mention increased cost of feed stuffs, mules, farming implements, etc. As the average yield per acre, as per figures of the United States Government, is 30.6 bushels per acre for the past 10 years, or 1,377 pounds per acre, the equivalent of 8 commercial barrels, and, as the average prices for the past 10 years is, say, $3 per barrel, or $25.50 per acre on plantation, one can see that the margin of profit is not any greater than it should be." The foregoing premises considered, the rice interests of these United States of America pray and ask that the present tariff conditions, in so far as they affect rice, be not disturbed. S. LOCKE BREAUX, Directors of Rice Association of America and committee: J. E. Broussard, Beaumont, Tex.; H. G. Chalkley, Lake Charles, La.; P. S. Lovell, Crowley, La.; W. P. H. McFaddin, Beaumont, Tex. |