ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK CLARK, M. C., IN ADVOCACY OF PLACING A DUTY ON RAW COTTON.

WASHINGTON, D. C., December 14, 1908.

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS,

Washington, D. C.

GENTLEMEN: As additional to what has been said and submitted in behalf of the levying and collection of a duty on all long-staple raw cotton imported into the United States, either in lint or in seed, from Egypt, Peru, the British West Indies, and other foreign lands, I shall submit, first, a letter from the Hon. Alex. St. Clair-Abrams, of Jacksonville, Fla. Major St. Clair-Abrams states the case so clearly and has such an intimate knowledge of conditions that I feel I can do no better than simply submit his letter for your consideration. The letter is as follows:

Hon. FRANK CLARK,

JACKSONVILLE, FLA., December 8, 1908.

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

MY DEAR CLARK: I have received your letter as well as the pamphlet on the tariff hearings. There is one matter that I do not think has been sufficiently impressed on the committee and it is this: That you can only raise long cotton or sea-island cotton on light sandy soil, while short staple cotton can be raised on clay and other heavy soils. On the light sandy soil the average of lint on the long or sea-island cotton varies from 100 to 125 pounds per acre, while on the short cotton the average will be 200 to 500 pounds per acre. Therefore, it is not only the difference in price of labor and the cost of picking, but also the difference in the average production of cotton which bears most heavily upon the grower. I think you could have safely stated to the committee, and can still safely state to them, that in Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida there is enough of this light sandy soil adapted to the cultivation of long or sea-island cotton to supply not only the United States but the world.

As a result of the average low price and the uncertainty, caused by the com petition from free Egyptian and other cotton, the children of the farmers who are raising the staple, instead of going into the same business, leave the farms and seek other and more profitable avocations, and the result is that instead of the staple increasing in volume every year it remains about stationary and is principally cultivated by the older men, who have no other occupation and are not familiar with any other business that could prove more profitable.

When I came to Florida, in 1874, there was a great deal of long cotton raised in Putnam, Marion, Orange, Volusia, Brevard, Polk, Hillsboro, and Manatee counties. To-day not a bale of cotton is raised in those counties, although there are hundreds of thousands of acres of land in them admirably adapted to the culture of the staple. The decline in the price has been the sole cause of the people abandoning the staple as a farm product. It is perfectly clear to my mind that unless a protective duty is imposed on this cotton that within twenty years there will not be a bale of sea-island cotton raised in the South. It is not a question of apprehension as to the future, but a question of the actual condition which exists at the present time. Under ordinary circumstances our production of long cotton should have increased fourfold, instead of which it has either remained stationary or is actually declining. In the meantime thousands of our young men, both white and black, who were born on these long-cotton farms, are annually leaving them because they see no hope of making even a fair living out of its culture. To stop this exodus and abandonment of these farms, to keep these young men on them and afford them a reasonable opportunity of earning a fair profit, is certainly worthy of the attention of Congress.

As you have properly stated, for years I have given this matter a great deal of attention and study. Not a few of my clients have been utterly ruined by the low prices of long cotton and have seen their farms sold from under them as a result, and they driven, in their mature years, from the homes where they were born to live a life of struggling poverty elsewhere.

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Because of my knowledge of the situation and my advocacy of a protective tariff, I refused in 1888 to accept a nomination for Congress tendered to me at Orlando by a committee as a result of the long drawn out struggle between General Bullock and Hon. John E. Hartridge, on the sole condition that I would pledge myself to abide the action of the Democratic caucus on the subject of the tariff. I mention this fact only to show how many years I have had this matter in my mind.

I regret exceedingly that I could not have been in Washington to have aided you in this matter, and wish you the most complete success.

If you think this letter will help you any you are at liberty to file it with the committee.

Repeating my sincere hope that you will be successful in obtaining this much needed and much merited relief to the long-cotton growers of this State, I am, my dear Clark,

Very truly, yours,

ABE ST. CLAIR-ABRAMS.

I have made every possible effort to secure exact figures as to cost of production of cotton in Egypt. I have been enabled to secure what I regard as authentic information touching the labor cost in Egypt. I made the statement in my former address to the committee on this subject that labor in the cotton fields of Egypt only commanded a wage of from 10 to 20 cents per day. It seems I was in error, because from the evidence which I shall now furnish the committee it appears that laborers in the upper Nile section receive a wage of from only 9 to 11 cents per day.

I herewith submit a letter from the Hon. Charles P. Neill, Commissioner of Labor of the Department of Commerce and Labor, under date of December 9, 1908, which speaks for itself:

Hon. FRANK CLARK,

WASHINGTON, December 9, 1908.

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: Your request to the Bureau of Statistics, Department of Commerce and Labor, for information regarding the cost of field labor in the cotton fields of Egypt has been referred to this office for attention.

In reply I would say that exact and recent data on this subject are not available. The best information which I can supply you is the following extract from the United States Monthly Consular Reports for 1904, page 1107:

"Wages in Egypt.-The Deutsche Kolonial Zeitung of April 7, 1904, says that of the population of Egypt, which is about 8,000,000, only a few are engaged in commerce and industry; the greater part are devoted to agriculture. The labor supply is large and wages are low. In Upper Egypt wages are from 9 to 11 cents per diem; in Lower Egypt, 13 to 18 cents. Board is never furnished. In addition to wages by the day or the month (the latter for overseers), payments may be made according to the work. For example, to plow 11 acres, 94 cents; to irrigate it, 70 cents. The fellaheen prefer to receive their wages in natural products, particularly shares of the crop-as, for sowing and reaping, 5 per cent of the grain; for thrashing, 1 per cent of the grain and 1 per cent of the straw. In growing cotton on bad ground they receive one-third to one-half of the crop; on good ground, about one-fifth of the crop and the refuse parts of the cotton plant, to be used as firewood. In the case of corn, the laborer gets one-half the crop; in rice, which requires irrigation, threefifths. The fellaheen do not like to work where it is necessary to use the sakieh or shadoof (mechanisms to draw water by animals or by hand, respectively). On the whole, the position of the laborer in Egypt is not good." Hoping that this information is sufficient for your purpose,

I am, very truly, yours,

CHAS. P. NEILL, Commissioner.

I desire to state to the committee, in conclusion, that since the hearing on this subject, December 1 last, I have been to Florida, and my further investigation of the subject convinces me of the truth of the following:

First. There exists in the sea-island cotton belt of the United States sea-island cotton-producing land sufficient to supply any demand for this product in the United States.

Second. No one now engages in the production of sea-island cotton as a money-making proposition. The sea-island cotton now grown in Florida is chiefly grown by the very small farmer, who makes a support for his family otherwise and simply plants enough of this cotton (which is generally worked and gathered by his children) to make a bale or two of lint, thus guaranteeing to him some ready money at Christmas time.

Third. Eighty to 100 pounds of lint under present methods, and without the use of fertilizers per acre, is a fair average crop of seaisland cotton for Florida.

Four hundred and fifty pounds of lint per acre, with the present crude methods of cultivation and without the use of fertilizers, is considered a fair average crop in Egypt.

Fourth. Labor in the Upper Nile region in Egypt is from 9 to 11 cents per day and in the Lower Nile region it is from 13 to 18 cents per day.

Counting twenty-six working days to the month, and multiplying the said twenty-six days by the average wage, which would be 131 cents per day, we would have $3.51 as the average monthly wage paid laborers in the cotton fields of Egypt, as against from $25 to $30 per month paid to farm laborers in the sea-island cotton region of Florida.

Fifth. Conditions surrounding the production of sea-island cotton in the United States have grown worse year after year, and unless something is done to save the industry the time is close at hand when not a pound of sea-island cotton will be grown in the United States.

In conclusion, I desire to print with these remarks a clipping from the Evening Metropolis, a newspaper published in Jacksonville, Fla. The item is a telegraphic dispatch from the town of Alachua, a town of about 1,000 inhabitants located in the heart of the seaisland-cotton belt, and has been always one of our principal markets for sea-island cotton.

The news clipping speaks for itself and I herewith present it:

BACKSET FOR COTTON-GROWERS NEAR ALACHUA HAULED STAPLE BACK HOME.

ALACHUA, December 14. Something that has scarcely ever happened in the county, and never at Alachua, is the fact that cotton offered for sale has had no buyers.

This place has not only always paid more for cotton than any other place in the county, but has generally been the leader of the State, and the fact that cotton has been offered for sale by the growers there for the past several days without buyers certainly shows that the market is in bad shape.

It has always been said that cotton is one thing that the farmer could depend on to get cash out of, but the present crop will doubtless make many of the larger growers look to other products another season and see if cotton can not be again brought up to where it will pay the farmer to grow it.

Respectfully submitted.

FRANK CLARK.

PURIFIED COTTON.

[Paragraph 537.]

SEABURY & JOHNSON, NEW YORK CITY, ASK SPECIAL PROVISION AND RATE FOR PURIFIED COTTON FIBER.

NEW YORK CITY, December 1, 1908.

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS,

Washington, D. C.

GENTLEMEN: This petition relates particularly to cotton fiber, highly purified and advanced in value by reason of being subjected to more or less elaborate mechanical and chemical processes in order to produce a finished product, which is not "cotton" (the crude cotton fiber as ordinarily understood), or "cotton waste or flocks," as commonly recognized in the market, and therefore should not enter this country duty free under paragraph 537, " cotton, and cotton waste or flocks," of the present tariff act.

Since the enactment of the present tariff, cotton fiber, whether originating from the crude or raw staple or recovered by any of the numerous processes well known for recovering the cotton fiber from spun or woven cotton products and freed from mechanical impurities and from oil, gum, and other natural and foreign constituents there might be beyond the pure cellulose of the fiber itself, and rendered free from the chemicals necessary to produce the purified cellulose-such purified cotton fiber has found extensive new uses in the manufacture and production of smokeless powder, artificial silk, filaments for incandescent electric light bulbs, varnishes, lacquers, celluloid, and doubtless other uses more or less the subject of trade secrets.

These new uses of this purified cotton fiber have made its manufacture the subject of special attention and have resulted in a very large trade in this special product, and importations of thousands of bales have entered this country from Europe duty free under paragraph 537, and at an invoice valuation which makes it impossible for the American manufacturer to successfully compete notwithstanding the fact that the fiber itself is undoubtedly almost entirely of American origin.

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The intention of Congress in paragraph 537 in the term (1) of "" cotton was most probably to cover raw or crude cotton in its various grades as commonly known in the markets of the world, and in the terms (2) of "cotton waste" or "flocks" to refer to waste or flocks which remained in their original condition and which had not become the subject of special manufacturing processes to bleach and purify them. The cotton waste or flocks which are well defined and well known and of everyday trade are very different and distinct from this purified cotton, which is practically never met in the regular business of those handling cotton waste or flocks. Very naturally, price being attractive, it would be handled by such dealers if offered to them as cotton waste or "flocks," but such terms would not correctly define the product.

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Though this refined cotton be an article readily recognized as cotton" it is not the cotton which we believe was intended by Con

gress in paragraph 537, for this is a bleached and purified cotton, which, under the mechanical and chemical processes to which it has been subjected, has been changed in character and has been changed in use.

Changed in character from the unbleached crude or recovered fiber with oil, gum, and adherent impurities, to a bleached fiber free from natural constituents and from adherent impurities.

Changed in use through processes of purification and bleaching to which it has been subjected so as to bring it into a condition possible for nitration, or treatment with acids and other chemicals for its new-found technical and industrial uses.

When the present tariff was written, the uses for the bleached and purified product as hereinbefore stated were practically unknown, and new industries, particularly that of manufacturing smokeless powder with this purified cotton or cellulose as a basis, have been established. The conditions, therefore, that have arisen in recent years are new ones from a protective-tariff standpoint, requiring adequate provision in the tariff classification in the form of a special paragraph for this specific product, say under Schedule I, cotton manufactures, with adequate rate of duty to protect the American manufacturer.

It is held that the article is a manufacture of cotton and a specific product, and that a duty of not less than 2 cents per pound and 45 per cent ad valorem should be provided. The rate of duty here pleaded for is predicated on the knowledge that large quantities of this cotton have been repeatedly imported at an invoice value of 8 cents per pound.

The cheapest grade of cotton fiber likely to be used in the American manufacture of such a product would be "linters," and which at the present time would cost in the neighborhood of 4 cents per pound for the crude article of good grade. The cost of bleaching and purifying this fiber to bring it into the advanced state of the product under discussion, including a loss in weight of 24 per cent from weight of the original material, would be 3.3 cents per pound, making a cost of 7.9 cents, and with addition for general factory expenses of from 12 to 15 per cent, to a total factory cost of 9 cents. This figure is without any additions for selling expenses or profit or interest on investment, yet the imported product comes in at a valuation of 8 cents per pound, and if truthfully valued has had all these expenses added, which thus makes it impossible for the American producer to compete.

If made from comber waste, which is unbleached waste cotton fiberand which is the grade of stock some of the importers claim some of the foreign article is made of-if made from such comber waste costing in the American market at the present time 83 cents per pound, the American manufactured or finished product would cost 12 cents, factory cost.

If made from crude or raw cotton, say, for instance, from the grade known as "middling" cotton, at 93 cents per pound, the price of the American manufactured product will have advanced to 13 cents, factory cost.

The rate of duty suggested protects only the product made from linters. To protect a product made from "comber waste" or "raw