175 pounds, later in the second agreement that was raised to less than 200 pounds, and on cattle weighing more than 700 pounds, but there was a gap between the calves weighing 175 to 200 pounds and the cattle weighing 700 pounds, and that was covered in the Mexican agreement.

Almost immediately after that agreement went into effect on January 30-I believe the date was mentioned a few minutes ago-of this year the Mexicans increased the export duty. I should not say they increased the duty. They increased the valuation on which they figured the duty, which amounts to the same thing, and on the basis of that increase in valuation they immediately took up 80 percent of the reduction, so that the net effect of that was, so far as we are concerned, that it nullified the spirit and intent of the Reciprocal Trade Act, and they transferred from Uncle Sam's Treasury to the Mexican Treasury 80 percent of the amount of the duty that was forgiven under that trade agreement.

I talked to a gentleman over in the Department who is interested in this matter, and he told me that they did not get into the Mexican agreement a restriction that they could not perform in that fashion. That should have been put in there. It would have been put in there if this Congress had had something to say about arriving at such duties. Incidentally I also asked this gentleman about the reduction in the tariff on hides that I just referred to, and he was very frank about it. He said this: The only reason for reducing the tariff on hides was because the Argentines wanted it reduced.

But there is one better example than any of these that I can call to your attention, and that is the example of the Argentine Sanitary Convention. In 1935 the State Department negotiated a treaty with Argentina which is known as the Argentine Sanitary Convention, and which would have nullified the provisions of section 306 (a) of the Tariff Act with regard to the embargo against imports of live animals or dressed meats from countries where foot-and-mouth disease exists. Fortunately that was handled as a treaty. But if the State Department had had the authority to handle that as a trade agreement, that shows where we would have been today. We would have had Argentine beef in this country and we would have had foot-and-mouth disease beyond the shadow of a doubt.

I secured from Dr. Mohler, Chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry, fresh information as to disease conditions in that country. This is in a letter dated April 12, over the signature of Dr. Mohler, and he shows me that, beginning in February of 1942, Argentina had one of the worst outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in the history of the country. They had 208 outbreaks in that month. In March they had 332 outbreaks; in April, 342; in May they had 264; in June, 445; July, 378; August, 412; September, 30.

Very interestingly we find that England last year also had very much more trouble with foot-and-mouth disease than for many years past, and we find that about 60 days following these big outbreaks in Argentina they had the outbreaks in England, and we think we can trace now more definitely than at any times in the past the fact that England does get foot-and-mouth disease from Argentina, because they are not getting any meat from any other country that has footand-mouth disease except from South America. All their other imports

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are coming from this country, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, where there is no foot-and-mouth disease. So we have that complete record of heavy outbreaks down there in 1942, followed by heavy outbreaks in England, yet if the State Department had had the authority and had followed their inclination, despite all the promises Mr. Sayre made about how considerate they were of the interests of domestic producers, that Argentine Sanitary Convention would be in effect today and we would be having experiences such as they are having over in England right now.

In connection with this matter, here is a clipping from a paper. There was a good deal of publicity a few weeks ago about the killing of a fine herd of shorthorn cattle in northern Scotland, and here is the headline which accompanied that paper. The big type says, "Collapsed when his £100,000 cattle herd was burnt." This fine old Scotchman that had this wonderful herd of cattle, collapsed and was in very serious condition when the authorities killed that fine herd of cattle that, according to the headline, was worth £100,000.

We hear a lot of broadcasters take the air and tell us, "Oh, if we didn't just have this little bunch of selfish cattlemen out West we would have all the cheap meat we want from Argentina." And we would have foot and mouth disease, too!

Besides that, they haven't any meat to spare. Under the Allied Food Council plan, England buys all the meat from South America, and we are allotted a little of the canned beef, but we don't take any more of that than we have to. I have that information from the authorities.

There has also been an assumption in discussing these trade matters that if an industry has to have tariff protection it is therefore automatically a weak industry. For the cattle industry I want to say we are not a weak industry. I don't know of any industry that has stood up throughout this depression and asked for less help from Uncle Sam than has the cattle industry. I am sure Congressman West will bear me out in that statement. In the drought of 1934, Uncle Sam did come to the rescue of the livestock industry and spent a lot of money to buy livestock and prevent their dying in the drought. We didn't ask for the range A. A. A. program; it was given to us, but we didn't ask for it, and we accepted it rather reluctantly. But in 1934 Uncle Sam spent $100,000,000 in buying cattle, and out of that he secured 800,000,000 pounds of canned beef, so that wasn't wasted.

Some reference was made the other day in the discussion about turkeys. You have had a lot of fun about turkeys. But Mr. Robertson said that the reason they didn't reduce the tariff on turkeys was because the cost of production in Argentina was so much below the cost in Virginia.

The cost of producing beef down there is similarly lower. We have the same thing exactly. The same thing is true with Mexico. You all know their costs of production are entirely different from ours. And the fact of the matter is that the cost of production in this country is largely beyond the control of the industry producer, whether he is a cattle producer or what it may be. The tax structure is built up; he has very little to do with it. And more than that, today, there is the cost of labor. We have an administration that has deliberately put up labor so that out on the ranches today we are paying from 50 to 100

percent more for our ranch hands than we were a year or a little over a year ago. We can't do anything about it if we are going to keep up production. We have to hire those men and pay the wages. But that doesn't make a weak industry out of us. Still we do have to have protection if we want to keep up this meat supply in this country, and not let ourselves be placed in the condition of England, who have to go all the way to Argentina through the subinfested waters to keep their life line of meat going.

I want to call your attention again to the situation we will face at the end of this war, with these greatly overexpanded industries. I want to show you that in 1919 Canada, with free trade on cattle, dumped into this country 450,000 cattle. During the war period we had been getting around 150,000 a year. But when the war was over they dumped 450,000. Why? Because they had been holding back a supply for their own use. When the emergency was over they put them into this relatively high market. The same year, the year ending June 30, 1919, the imports of canned beef jumped from nothing to 127,000,000 pounds, and that is a lot of cattle put into cans. And we will have just exactly that same thing again when this war is over. We will have every country in the world that has any surpluses of any kind coming to this market because it is the best market on earth, and if you gentlemen don't begin to think now about how you are going to protect against that contingency, in my opinion we are going to repeat the experience we had following the last World War, when we had to have the Emergency Tariff Act of 1921, followed by the regular Tariff Act of 1922.

If the act is extended, we would like to see Congress reserve to itself the power of ratifying whatever trade agreements are made. I can assure you that the country is very much heartened by the fact that Congress is beginning to take back some of the powers that it granted the Executive during the emergency, and we think here is another instance where you ought to restore those powers to yourselves.

We would like to see bilateral agreements rather than unilateral agreements. You will remember the instance I gave you of the reduction in tariff on Mexican cattle. Of course you can say that so long as they raised the export duty we weren't particularly hurt. But Canada got the benefit of that reduction in tariff, although she had nothing to do with the agreement with Mexico, and it is that policy that has to do with the whole world that I think the country generally dislikes. We would like to see a restriction in the law that would make it very definite that the Executive does not have the power to amend sanitary provisions of existing law. If we were to have an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, with this great number of livestock and with the transportation difficulties we have, it is very doubtful whether we could get it under control, as we always have succeeded in controlling such outbreaks in the past.

If the act is extended we believe its time should be limited, whether it is to 1 year or 2 years, but not more than 2 years, so that whatever party is in power after the election a year from next fall they will have a voice in fixing the tariff rates.

I think at that time it is certain that we are going to have a reexamination of this whole tariff structure of this country, and it just seems reasonable that this law should not be extended beyond that time.

Mr. Chairman, that is all I have to say.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you through?

Mr. MOLLIN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you a cattle grower yourself?

Mr. MOLLIN. Not now. I was for many years.

The CHAIRMAN. You are not now?

Mr. MOLLIN. No, sir. I am secretary of the organization.

The CHAIRMAN. Where is its headquarters?

Mr. MOLLIN. Denver, Colo.

The CHAIRMAN. How recently have you been in the cattle-producing business?

Mr. MOLLIN. I left the cattle-producing business when I went to work for this association on April 1, 1929.

The CHAIRMAN. You are familiar with prices in 1929, 1930, 1931. and 1932?

Mr. MOLLIN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You are familiar with them now?

Mr. MOLLIN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. How do they compare?

Mr. MOLLIN. The prices are very much better now.

The CHAIRMAN. We didn't have any reciprocal trade agreement then, did we?

Mr. MOLLIN. No.

The CHAIRMAN. We have now?

Mr. MOLLIN. Yes; but that doesn't prove

The CHAIRMAN. Just answer my question.

Mr. MOLLIN. I will answer your question, if you give me a chance to. The CHAIRMAN. Answer my questions without giving me a debate. How much higher are cattle now than they were in those years under the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act?

Mr. MOLLIN. Of course, you know, Mr. Chairman, that the world depression followed immediately after the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. In fact, it was in progress before the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act ever was passed.

The CHAIRMAN. When did it reach the lowest point?

Mr. MOLLIN. In 1932.

The CHAIRMAN. What act was in effect then?

Mr. MOLLIN. That is the act. I say the depression started in 1929. The CHAIRMAN. I am not talking about the depression, I am_talking about the tariff. I don't want to get into the depression. If we do we will be here until the end of time. I am talking about the tariff and trade agreements.

Mr. MOLLIN. Of course, you have to take other things into consideration, too.

The CHAIRMAN. I know. We will take it into consideration. When did cattle reach their lowest price level since you have been familiar with the cattle business?

Mr. MOLLIN. Well, it was at the bottom of the depression.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes. What brought about the depression?

Mr. MOLLIN. The world condition following the First World War. It wasn't the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act.

The CHAIRMAN. I thought the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act and the high protective tariff were supposed to make the country independent. I thought that was what it was for, that it wasn't affected by world

conditions so much. When times are good in this country they say it is our own economic condition, but when they are bad, they say it is the world situation.

Mr. MOLLIN. I think we will probably always hope that we are going to have a perfect situation, but we are always going to have ups and downs.

The CHAIRMAN. The prices of cattle are satisfactory now, aren't they?

Mr. MOLLIN. Very much so.

The CHAIRMAN. They are very high?

Mr. MOLLIN. And we don't expect them to stay at present levels. We don't think that is a level that can be maintained.

The CHAIRMAN. Unless everything else stays at the present level we could hardly want them to stay there.

Mr. MOLLIN. We wouldn't want them to. As a matter of fact, the administration is trying right now to bring the prices down on both cattle and hogs, more or less in line with present ceilings, and we are not opposing that effort. We want to see the meat program work and we are cooperating with the administration.

The CHAIRMAN. You spoke about the country being flooded with cattle after the war is over. Don't we have quotas? Even at the present rates there are quotas.

Mr. MOLLIN. Not now.

The CHAIRMAN. They are limited.

Mr. MOLLIN. Not now.

The CHAIRMAN. They would be. They have a right to terminate the agreements in a very short time when a country is liable to be flooded.

Mr. MOLLIN. Quotas have been stricken out by Executive order.
The CHAIRMAN. You won't let me ask my questions.

Mr. MOLLIN. Let me answer the question.

The CHAIRMAN. Can't trade agreements be terminated on notice of so many months?

Mr. MOLLIN. Right now we haven't any quotas. The President terminated the quotas by Executive order.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand we have always had quotas.

Mr. MOLLIN. The quotas began in the Canadian trade agreement. The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask you this: I am in the cattle business, so far as I am in business at all. Suppose every man, or every industry, wrote his own tariff laws. What kind of country would we have? Or suppose he wrote his own tax laws, without regard to other occupations or other businesses?

Mr. MOLLIN. We are not asking any such thing.
The CHAIRMAN. We couldn't do that, could we?

Mr. MOLLIN. We are not asking that.

The CHAIRMAN. But you are very much opposed to any modification in the present tariff laws so far as the livestock industry is concerned, if I have understood you for the last 25 minutes.

Mr. MOLLIN. I will tell you, Mr. Chairman, I think we are in a very acute position in connection with this tremendous expansion.

The CHAIRMAN. You are out of business and I am in. You are alarmed and I am not. Of course, you are speaking for your association. That is proper.