to pay the duty before we see them. We have to go to the customhouse and pay the duty before we see what condition the cargo is in. Under the old damage-allowance law we could have an inspector go in and inspect the goods and find out what the damage was and get a rebate, but now the only privilege is to abandon the goods after we have paid for them. That is the law to-day.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. That is an advantage to the American producer you say of about 25 per cent?

Mr. JONES. I should say fully that.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Which would be practically adding that much to the tariff?

Mr. JONES. Yes, sir.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Can you tell me what the freight rates are from abroad for the transportation of china?

Mr. JONES. I can answer for Boston. The rate from Liverpool to Boston is 6s. a ton of 40 cubic feet, and if the crate measures a ton and a half, or 60 feet, it would be about $2.25.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. About $2.25 for a crate?

Mr. JONES. Yes, sir; or $2.50.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Added to the duty, what differential does that give in favor of the American producer, what percentage in the way of freight rates?

Mr. JONES. If the freight was $2.50 and the crate was worth $60, that would be about 5 per cent.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Then, in addition to the freight rate, the Americon producer is protected by a breakage that amounts to 23 per cent and a freight rate that amounts to 5 per cent?

Ar JONES. Yes, sir; and in the 5 per cent you must include the shipping charges from Staffordshire. The freight comes by canal down to Runcorn and then it lighters on lighters and comes down the river, and then is hoisted into the steamer to come to this country. Those charges amount to about 9s.. $2.25.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. That would increase the total freight differential how much?

Mr. JONES. I should think 6 or 7 per cent.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Then the advantage of the home producer over the foreigner amounts to 6 or 7 per cent in freight?

Mr. JONES. I should think 6 or 7 per cent.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Six or 7 per cent. Then the advantage of the home producer over the foreign shipment amounts to 6 or 7 per cent in freight and 21 per cent of breakage, in excess of the duty?

Mr. JONES. Yes, sir.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Now, there is another question I want to ask you. in answer to the proposition that Mr. Payne submitted to you, about fixing the tariff on the American price. Has pottery a fixed price in the market from day to day and from month to month?

Mr. JONES. No, sir. I have often been asked by some enterprising newspaper reporter. "What can you say about the market price for crockery?" I have been invariably answered, "There is no change." There is no fluctuation in crockery from month to month. There is one regular price for it, and there is no fluctuation that I know of. Mr. UNDERWOOD. Crockery in August is likely to be the same price as crockery in September?

Mr. JONES. Yes, sir.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. If that is the case, crockery, then, would have an American market price on which the duty could be estimated?

Mr. JONES. Well, as quantity governs the price, suppose a countryman came in and wanted one crate of ware. The price to him would be naturally somewhat more than it would be to the man who wanted 10 crates, and if a man wanted from 30 to 40 crates, the price per crate to him would be still less than to the man who wanted 1 crate, and that would be just according to the notion of the wholesaler. There is no scale to go by. We use our judgment as to a man's credit and wants, so that there is no standard of American value.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Then you mean to say by that that there is no fixed wholesale market price in this country upon which you could base the duty on importations?

Mr. JONES. I can not see how it can be. I want to say that the other member spoke about fixed prices. Now this association that I am one of never had any rule or understanding about the price of any pottery anywhere in the world, except these half dozen potteries in Staffordshire that have a standard of their own. There is no fixed standard price for the man who wants French china or German china or Japanese china.

Who are

Mr. UNDERWOOD. You sell and deal in American ware. the producers of American ware in this country? Mr. JONES. Well, there is a large number. East Liverpool, Ohio, is, I suppose, the largest producing point.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Is there an association of American producers of chinaware?

Mr. JONES. I believe there is.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Does that association fix the price of American

ware?

Mr. JONES. They tried to, and they would to-day if they could. Now, I will try to make it clear to you, that when they meet they come from East Liverpool, Ohio, and

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Give me the name of the association first.
Mr. JONES. The United States Potters' Association.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. All right.

Mr. JONES. They come from East Liverpool, Ohio; from Wheeling, W. Va.; from Trenton, N. J.; and from Syracuse, N. Y., and several other pottery centers. The others are small.

Now you ask if there is any combination. They have tried to fix the price, but their difficulty, as I understand it and I am only answering from my own information, and they can state whether or not I am wrong when they have opportunity, which I presume they will have their difficulty has been that, although they were large producers twenty years ago and made fortunes, subsequently a feeling or tendency to try to boom towns came up with natural gas and cheap fuel, and the promoter would go into the farming districts and say: "You ought to have a pottery here, a natural gas works; and they say pottery is cheap." They would sell shares to farmers and others who wanted to boom that town, and they would have a large industry with 100 tenement houses now, and those potteries in that way sprang up like mushrooms. They could make common pottery where it is no trick to make common pottery now; and when these mushroom potteries began to turn out their product they had to sell, they had to meet their promises, and they would cut the price and cut the profit;

and this stimulation that you have given to this industry has tempted many potteries to be built which without that stimulation would never have existed, and the experienced potteries would have gone on and got a fair price for their product. I do not think they get very much of a profit now, because of this competition that exists and because of this overproduction of American ware and this overstimu lation.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Do all the potters belong to this United States Potters' Association or are some of them independent?

Mr. JONES. Most of them belong to it. I could not undertake to state that exactly.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. And they attempt to fix the price in the market? Mr. JONES. So far as they can, they do.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. As a purchaser of the pottery made in this country, I understood you to say you dealt in American pottery? Mr. JONES. Yes.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Is the price now quoted to you from one potter on the same basis as the price quoted to you by another?

Mr. JONES. In a general way, yes.

The CHAIRMAN. You say they would fix the price if they could. That implies that they can not, does it not?

Mr. JONES. If there is a mushroom potter, he has got to unload. The CHAIRMAN. Then, there is no uniform price of American pottery?

Mr. JONES. On certain lines I think there is.

The CHAIRMAN. That is quite different from what you said a moment ago, that there was not a uniform price, in your reply to Mr. Underwood. On which proposition do you stand?

Mr. JONES. I will stand on this: They would like to get a fixed price if that fixed price would hold them.

The CHAIRMAN. They try to get the market price, do they not? Mr. JONES. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. You say a number of your wholesale houses try to get a fixed market price, and do get it on a large portion of the goods? Do I understand you correctly?

Mr. JONES. No, sir; on a very small portion of the goods.

The CHAIRMAN. Then there is a fixed price on that portion, is

there?

Mr. JONES. Not absolutely.

The CHAIRMAN. It is no crime for a man to get the market price for his goods, no matter what he sells, is it? I am not trying to indict you for it. I want just the fact.

Mr. JONES. We are not held down to any price, but we have to meet competition.

The CHAIRMAN. But there is as much of a uniformity of price in imported pottery as there is in the home production, is there not? Mr. JONES. Just about.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that answers that question.

Now, you spoke awhile ago about our manufacturers here not being able to produce first-class pottery, and that the importations were first class, and not of the lower class. Where do you draw the line on those two classes? In what way do you distinguish them so that an ordinary man could understand it?

Mr. JONES. Well, I should say that the common white ware that we used to import largely, of the ware that we call pie plates and toilet ware and pitchers and bowls of that sort, the American potter has entirely to himself, and then when you come to cheap decorated dinner sets, they have made considerable progress in decorating their ware in china and those imitations of the foreign article and the wellfinished product.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that is for an expert to say. I mean to the ordinary purchaser they look like a good ordinary finished product, do they not?

Mr. JONES. I would like to have you examine for yourself some time.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I have seen pottery, and I am not altogether a spring chicken in this matter. [Laughter.] Are you familiar with the ware turned out by the Buffalo pottery?

Mr. JONES. Yes; in a general way.

The CHAIRMAN. Is not that a pretty fine class of goods?

Mr. JONES. I do not think the Buffalo pottery makes dinner ware. Syracuse makes a very creditable product of pottery.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; Syracuse makes good enough pottery for any man to eat his dinner off, does it not?

Mr. JONES. Yes. They stand at the head.

The CHAIRMAN. And they produce a pretty good article?

Mr. JONES. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And it sells alongside the imported article in the market, does it not?

Mr. JONES. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. There are other potteries pretty near as good as the Syracuse, are there not?

Mr. JONES. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. So that our own people do make first-class pottery, and it is sold in this market, a considerable part of it, is it not? Mr. JONES. More than one-half of what the American consumer uses is made in this country.

The CHAIRMAN. What proportion of that which is imported and sold in this country is of the first class that you speak of? Mr. JONES. I would say a very small proportion.

The CHAIRMAN. How large is it?

Mr. JONES. It would be a rough guess in any event.

The CHAIRMAN. They know more about their sales than you do? Mr. JONES. I suppose so.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the freight on pottery from East Liverpool to Boston?

Mr. JONES. I should say about 18 cents a hundred pounds. I can not give you that answer accurately.

The CHAIRMAN. You do not know what it is?

Mr. JONES. I only know about what it is.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know what it is in Syracuse?

Mr. JONES. No; I do not.

The CHAIRMAN. Or from West Virginia?

Mr. JONES. No; I do not.

The CHAIRMAN. Or from the Trenton potteries?

Mr. JONES. I should think it was about the same.

The CHAIRMAN. Then when you said, as I think, that the difference was 7 per cent in favor of the American pottery on freight, when you replied to Mr. Underwood, you were talking without knowing what the freight was from those points of sale to your point of sale; absolutely without knowledge?

Mr. JONES. No; I have not that knowledge.

The CHAIRMAN. About this breakage, do I understand that of your importations the average breakage is 24 per cent? Is that what you were trying to say?

Mr. JONES. That is what I suppose we could reckon on.

The CHAIRMAN. You calculated that that is the average breakage in shipping pottery to you?

Mr. JONES. From the foreign potter?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; 21 per cent. That is correct, is it?

Mr. JONES. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Do the sellers allow you for that?

Mr. JONES. They make no allowance whatever.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you collect it from the transportation companies?

Mr. JONES. Very rarely.

The CHAIRMAN. And there is breakage on domestic pottery, is there not? I suppose that will break, will it not? [Laughter.]

Mr. JONES. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And it is as apt to break on the cars as on an ocean steamer?

Mr. JONES. Oh, no. It does not have so many transfers in transit. The CHAIRMAN. Have you ever estimated the breakage on the domestic pottery shipped to you?

Mr. JONES. I think it would be very small.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you ever estimated it?

Mr. JONES. I never have.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you ever kept an account of your importations and breakage of foreign pottery in your stores?

Mr. JONES. I think they have an accurate account.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know?

Mr. JONES. I do not know. I will tell you what I think, in answer to that question.

The CHAIRMAN. I did not suppose you are doing business in such a loose way as that, that you do not keep account of it.

Mr. JONES. I think in dull times we keep an accurate account. I think in busy times we allow it to lapse.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course the pottery would not break any more in dull times than in busy times? [Laughter.]

Mr. JONES. No, sir; but then we ascertain what our conditions are, in dull times.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you kindly look at your books and make up a statement of what that breakage is for us?

Mr. JONES. If that record was continuous. I will. I will make inquiry about it.

The CHAIRMAN. If you do not think it material we will pass it by. You were contending for an advantage of 21 per cent to the American producer on that account. I want to know what the fact is on foreign pottery and what the fact is on domestic pottery, and I want to see what the difference is, if there is any.