"by Francis E. Hamilton, their attorney." It is just such a paper as we might expect from an attorney who gets his information at second hand.

When Mr. Hamilton appeared before your committee on November 12 last he said, "I do not know anything about it (the wine business) except what information I have received from my clients." Mr. Hamilton again confesses his ignorance when, in answer to a question of Mr. Underwood as to his experience in the wine business, he said that he had "absolutely none."

Although admitting his profound ignorance, Mr. Hamilton blandly assumes to instruct your committee on important and practical matters connected with the foreign and domestic wine business, of which he has little or no real knowledge. It is no wonder then that he makes so many mistakes and misleading statements. To such amazing assertions as that: "At no time during the past ten years have fine champagne grapes sold in France at less than $300 per ton," we can reply-as did a well-known humorist-either Mr. Hamilton "is woefully misinformed or else he's an exception."

The lawyer-like briefs of the Wine and Spirit Traders' Society and of the Italian Chamber of Commerce are filled with mistakes and misstatements of fact. It is easy enough to make loose and misleading assertions. It is another and entirely different matter to prove them, and the importing wine trade interests have failed in this respect to make out their case. Therefore, to correct certain gross errors and to lay the actual facts before the Committee on Ways and Means the following is submitted:

PRESENT TARIFF NEEDED AGAINST CHEAP FOREIGN WINES.

At the initial hearing before your committee on November 12 last, in order to show the absolute necessity of maintaining the present rate of duty on foreign wines, we gave the exact prices at which those wines were being bought and sold in the open markets abroad. We simply stated the actual facts and figures. We showed that in different places in France and in Italy the prices of wines were from 8 to 10 cents per gallon. We supported our statement by quoting figures from reliable foreign trade journals, which must necessarily print the facts and the truth for their readers.

In order to break the force of such facts, the Wine and Spirit Traders' Society offer only the following explanation:

Mr. Lee J. Vance stated before the committee on November 12 that certain French wines were sold at 8 and 9 cents a gallon in the foreign market at auction. He evidently left it to be inferred by the committee that such lowpriced wines were imported into this country. This is not the case, for the reason that they are new wines, incapable of importation.

In the first place, we did not state that these French wines were sold at "auction." In the second place, wines quoted at 8 or 9 cents a gallon were not "new wines."

In order that this matter may be perfectly plain and well understood, we quote from the French paper of September 30, 1908, the exact market report:

Sur le marché de Montpellier, les prix sont sans changement, les vins vieux se paient de o fr. 90 à 1 fr. le degré; les demandes en vins nouveaux sont rares.

[Translation.]

In the Montpellier market the prices are the same, the old wines being quoted from 90 centimes to 1 franc the degree; the demand for new wines are infrequent.

The foregoing facts and figures furnish a complete answer to the unsupported and misleading assertions put forth by the Wine and Spirit Traders' Society.

A more ingenious but equally erroneous statement on this subject is made in the memorial of the Italian Chamber of Commerce, as follows:

Quotations of wines of the grade required and shipped to this market are obtainable only through special application to the shipper.

According to this theory, the prices of Italian and other foreign wines are a profound secret, which is only disclosed upon "special application to the shippers.' This is all nonsense. It is only necessary to pick up any foreign wine trade journal and there read the shippers' own price lists, which are openly and freely given for public information. In this way "the shippers" actually advertise for business and for foreign orders.

Let us illustrate the fact by giving an example. We have before us the published price list, in Italian, of a large firm of wine shippers at Genoa, Italy. We quote the following:

Fine wines for blending heavy color 14 to 15 degrees at 21.50 to 23.75 lire per 100 liters, or about $4.30 to $4.65 per 22 gallons.

The Italian Chamber of Commerce claims that "the wines which are shipped from foreign countries to the American market are the best grades." And yet, these "best grades" of foreign wines are comparatively very cheap at the place or country of production.

The very best grades" of Italian wines which are shipped to this country come from what is called the Piedmont. They include such brands as the Barbera, Grignolino, Barolo, Nebiolo, etc.

A few months ago the Giornale Vinicolo Italiano, which is an authority for the Italian wine trade, published "the average price" of Piedmont wines for the past ten years. The figures from 1900 to 1908 are as follows:

A lira is about 20 cents, and a hectoliter 22 gallons; so that the prices have averaged from $4.30 per 22 gallons in 1900 to $3.70 per 22 gallons in 1907, or at the rate of 21 cents per gallon to 18 cents per gallon for the very "best grades" of Italian wines.

However, the truth of the matter is partially admitted in the memorial of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in the following statement:

Although it is true that there are cheap ordinary wines sold in Italy to-day at about 10 cents per gallon naked on the spot, it is also an indisputable fact that wines of this grape are not fit for shipment and are not shipped beyond the seas because of their low alcoholic strength and other reasons they could not stand transportation.

Is that so? Then, what is there to prevent blending these cheap wines worth 10 cents per gallon with better and higher-priced wines and shipping them abroad? Is not this done? Of course it is, and a number of importers know very well and could testify that the "cheap ordinary wines sold in Italy to-day at about 10 cents per gallon" are shipped out of Italy all right.

The brief of the Italian Chamber of Commerce is quite as interesting for what it omits to state as for what it does say. Under our present tariff the Italian wine dealers and importers have built up a large and profitable trade at the expense of American grape and wine growers. The Italian Government has favored and supported their wine trade in every way. Our Government should pursue the same policy. It is a well-known fact that the Italian Government. has its official, paid agents located here in order to help the wine merchants of Italy and the Italian wine importers increase their trade in the United States. Why should we still further help them take away the trade and markets of our own producers and people? That our present tariff suits the importers may be seen by the figures showing the enormous increase in the importation of Italian wines during the past six or seven years. According to the brief of the Italian Chamber of Commerce," the reason is to be found in the gradual increase of Italian immigration.'

Let us see about this. Taking their own figures of the importations and the immigration, we have the following table:

The foregoing figures prove directly the opposite of the claims. made by the Italian Chamber of Commerce. Thus, while the Italian immigration has increased from 135,996 in the year 1901 to 285,731 in the year 1907, the importations of Italian wines have increased from only 251,934 gallons and 97,150 cases in the year 1901 to the immense quantity of 1,860,227 gallons and 198,785 cases in the fiscal year of 1907.

These official figures need no further comment. They speak for themselves. They refute in a large measure the claims put forth by the importers.

Evidently the author of the brief for the Italian Chamber of Commerce felt that some further explanation was necessary, and so we find the following statement:

The Italians who have emigrated to the United States are not only consumers of the wines of their native country, but also of domestic and especially of California wines.

Then follow these figures, which, as they show a decrease of the arrivals of California wines by sea at the port of New York for the years when the reciprocity rate with Italy was in force, weaken the whole argument of the Italian importers:

That our present tariff suits the importers of "the best grades" of Italian wines may be seen by the statistics we presented at the hearing on November 12 last. Thus, in the month of October, 1908, the Italian dealers sent their wines 3,500 miles to New York and then 3,000 miles more to San Francisco, where over 2,000 cases were imported during that month, right in the center of the California wine trade.

HOW THE IMPORTERS JUGGLE WITH THE FACTS.

Another glaring example of the deceptive statements submitted to your committee by the importing trade interest may be noted. We refer to the alleged" present prices of foreign and American wines." We challenge the correctness of the alleged present prices of American wines there quoted. The importers' brief does not state where the present prices given of certain foreign wines were obtained, but it does purport to submit prices of a few sweet wines of the Italian-Swiss colony and the California Wine Association as "of January 1, 1909."

We have now before us the printed trade or wholesale price list of California wines issued by the Italian-Swiss colony, dated January 1, 1909.

We fail to find in this trade list one single wine or one single price quoted the same as that given in the table submitted by the importers on page 6991. The plain conclusion is that the importers in their brief have deliberately sought to mislead the committee or else they have made a gross mistake.

Not content with juggling the figures, the brief of the importing wine trade interests makes the obviously unfair and absurd comparison of four of the cheapest California "sweet" wines with the highpriced Bordeaux "dry" wines, and with the Rhine and Moselle dry white wines.

We do not believe for a moment that your committee will be deceived by any such tactics. Almost any old conclusion could be "proved

by such false comparisons. Even if the prices quoted were correct— and they are not-it is a poor attempt at deception to compare the prices of the cheapest native sweet wines with the more expensive Bordeaux and Rhine dry wines of an entirely different type or class. In order to set the record straight, we will submit the correct trade prices of American wines of the same type as those quoted in the brief of the importing interests. For the sake of the argument we will admit that the prices of the foreign wines are given correctly by the importers, as follows:

We quote the following wines and prices from the official printed trade list issued by the Italian-Swiss colony, dated January 1, 1909:

The price list states: All prices are f. o. b. San Francisco. Above prices do not include cooperage.

Therefore add 5 cents to 6 cents per gallon for cooperage, and 71 cents per gallon for freight, and 1 to 14 cents per gallon for cartage and handling, making a total of 14 to 15 cents per gallon to the above prices, f. o. b. San Francisco.

It may be of interest to the committee to compare prices of other American dry and sweet wines. We submit the following prices from