highly to the economy of southeastern Alaska. However, because of these discriminatory insurance rates I believe it is retarding the commerce and we would have more of them if it weren't for these rates. Senator BARTLETT. Our troubles aren't over in respect to the additional tariffs on cargo from the Far East to Alaska. It is true that the so-called arbitrary, the 30-percent surcharge, was eliminated at the very strong insistence of Governor Gruening and myself. It is likewise true that individual companies on individual voyages may hereafter set surcharges on the basis of each voyage. But it is additionally true that Senator Gruening and I were successful in having an amendment placed in the so-called dual rate shipping conference bill permitting a Governor to file a protest with the Federal Maritime Commission when he believes that his State is being unjustly discriminated against in this respect.

And if such discriminations do appear in the future, I hope the Governor will fill the mails with protests, because this is something we have to end as promptly as possible.

Mr. ANDERSON. I think an excessive insurance rate is retarding the export of iron ore out of the State of Alaska. It is also retarding the possibility of exporting copper ores along with other raw resources that are available here, such as coal and other things.

Senator BARTLETT. We have enough handicaps otherwise created without having man add his.

Mr. ANDERSON. I hope that you as an able Member are able to convince the rest of the Congress that something should be done about this insurance matter.

Senator BARTLETT. We will take that under consideration and see what we can do.

Thank you, George.

STATEMENT OF DEAN HAMLIN, KETCHIKAN, ALASKA

Mr. HAMLIN. Senator Bartlett, I didn't come up to talk unless you want to talk over what we have been doing last couple of months on trying to get this 10 percent rescinded.

Senator BARTLETT. Why don't you.

Mr. HAMLIN. I am Dean Hamlin, Box 118, Ketchikan, Alaska. Senator, we listened to all the briefs and gripes that we all have, but our main trouble here in Alaska is the high cost of living. We have had it ever since it was a Territory and now a State. In all the years that I have been up here I am in the grocery business and I compare the prices of what we have to get up here compared with what is down in the States, in the lower States, and so it has always been a big interest of mine. Now, just lately, the city of Ketchikan has been fortunate enough to have a competing carrier come into town with lower rates. At that time I got together with a good friend of mine, L. C. Gosnell, and in talking it over I thought this is liable to help us, or should help us in getting the freight cut down and getting the 10 percent surcharge that the Alaska Steamship Co. has been charging, getting that denied. So I wrote to you and to Senator Gruening and Representative Rivers and the Governor and you all answered and asked for more information.

So the second time around we had received freight bills on the Griffith Line so we wrote in and told you about comparing the cost of

Alaska Highway is there, and the natural resource development of the area served is probably fairly adequate. But when you get into tourism and other forms of development then it becomes very inadequate because no one wants to drive over a dusty gravel highway for a vacation.

Mr. MCELROY. Do you think it likely, if that highway were paved it would be treated much like a turnpike, that people would move over it faster to get into Alaska?

Mr. SHARP. I think they would spend less time in Canada than they do now, to be frank about it, although the greater number that would come, probably Canada would benefit. I think Alaska would benefit a great deal more.

Mr. MCELROY. One other question, as a matter of information to me. Is Prince Rupert the northernmost point at which you can get a rail connection to the Canadian rail network and the south 48 rail network?

Mr. SHARP. No. The northernmost point right now is Dawson Creek. There is 100 miles lying north out of Prince George, which would be a little further north than Prince Rupert.

Senator BARTLETT. For service to southeastern

Mr. SHARP. Or the tidewater connection to rail in Canada, the closest point to the Canadian system is Prince Rupert.

Senator BARTLETT. In any case, Mr. Sharp, in connection with your recommendation that the U.S. money be used to do part of the highway job in Canada, no undertaking would be made in this direction, I assume, without Canada having first been advised and without having first expressed a willingness to participate in such a program.

Mr. SHARP. Yes. And, of course, my first reference to more aggressive, more initiative on the part of the State Department in dealing with these matters, would certainly bear repetition at this point. We shouldn't come out with any big program without consultation and negotiations with Canada. That would be a mistake in my opinion.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE ANDERSON, REPRESENTING THE INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN & WAREHOUSEMEN'S UNION, KETCHIKAN, ALASKA

Mr. ANDERSON. Senator, I want to congratulate you on your action in the last session of Congress in regard to steamship conference rates. You were able to do some good for the State of Alaska. However, I still feel we have some discriminatory measures that are being imposed upon Alaska, not especially by the steamship companies but by insurance companies. We understand that they lay off insurance with Lloyd's of London, and there is a very high, excessive rate being charged against any line that is in the offshore trade as we call it, and this imposes a high insurance rate for their entrance into southeastern waters.

I think it is something that the Government should look into, and possibly come up with the idea of even having their own insurance company. It is something which could come under the Maritime Commission.

We had some 36 to 40 vessels that were in the foreign trade in southeastern Alaska during the last year, and it has contributed

highly to the economy of southeastern Alaska. However, because of these discriminatory insurance rates I believe it is retarding the commerce and we would have more of them if it weren't for these rates. Senator BARTLETT. Our troubles aren't over in respect to the additional tariffs on cargo from the Far East to Alaska. It is true that the so-called arbitrary, the 30-percent surcharge, was eliminated at the very strong insistence of Governor Gruening and myself. It is likewise true that individual companies on individual voyages may hereafter set surcharges on the basis of each voyage. But it is additionally true that Senator Gruening and I were successful in having an amendment placed in the so-called dual rate shipping conference bill permitting a Governor to file a protest with the Federal Maritime Commission when he believes that his State is being unjustly discriminated against in this respect.

And if such discriminations do appear in the future, I hope the Governor will fill the mails with protests, because this is something we have to end as promptly as possible.

Mr. ANDERSON. I think an excessive insurance rate is retarding the export of iron ore out of the State of Alaska. It is also retarding the possibility of exporting copper ores along with other raw resources that are available here, such as coal and other things.

Senator BARTLETT. We have enough handicaps otherwise created without having man add his.

Mr. ANDERSON. I hope that you as an able Member are able to convince the rest of the Congress that something should be done about this insurance matter.

Senator BARTLETT. We will take that under consideration and see what we can do.

Thank you, George.

STATEMENT OF DEAN HAMLIN, KETCHIKAN, ALASKA

Mr. HAMLIN. Senator Bartlett, I didn't come up to talk unless you want to talk over what we have been doing last couple of months on trying to get this 10 percent rescinded.

Senator BARTLETT. Why don't you.

Mr. HAMLIN. I am Dean Hamlin, Box 118, Ketchikan, Alaska.

Senator, we listened to all the briefs and gripes that we all have, but our main trouble here in Alaska is the high cost of living. We have had it ever since it was a Territory and now a State. In all the years that I have been up here I am in the grocery business and I compare the prices of what we have to get up here compared with what is down in the States, in the lower States, and so it has always been a big interest of mine. Now, just lately, the city of Ketchikan has been fortunate enough to have a competing carrier come into town with lower rates. At that time I got together with a good friend of mine, L. C. Gosnell, and in talking it over I thought this is liable to help us, or should help us in getting the freight cut down and getting the 10 percent surcharge that the Alaska Steamship Co. has been charging, getting that denied. So I wrote to you and to Senator Gruening and Representative Rivers and the Governor and you all answered and asked for more information.

So the second time around we had received freight bills on the Griffith Line so we wrote in and told you about comparing the cost of

like commodities, like flour or canned goods and stuff like that, and your office sent a copy of the letter to the Maritime Commission and they in turn wrote and they didn't understand clearly what our comparison was due to the fact that they didn't have the actual freight bills for comparison.

So we took an overall average picture and sent 18 comparisons to them, showing the great discrepancy between one freight rate and another. One of the freight bills that I sent cost me, on Griffith, nine hundred some odd dollars, and it would have been better than $1,300 on the Alaska Steamship Co., which at that time was charging cube rate, where I brought it on on a weight basis on the Griffith Line.

So we made up these comparisons and about that time I had another letter from your office. You were gone, Senator Bartlett, but your office informed us that actually all of the evidence that could be submitted was through December 1960, evidently; no new evidence could be sent in. But the fact that Mr. Stigler, Chief, Regulation Office, in the Maritime Board, the fact that he wrote and wanted this stuff showed that they were still interested in getting stuff. So we sent it to them. Before sending it, when Senator Gruening was here, I had him go over all of it and he was so enthused about it that he wanted it. He wanted all the stuff for his own office so that he could take care of it. But the fact that Mr. Stigler had asked for it and we had made it up for him, we continued in the same vein and sent the stuff to them, wrote a letter to Senator Gruening's office.

I tried to photostat the freight bills but it was an odd thing. The freight bills are evidently already copies and they wouldn't ThermoFax. They probably would have photoed but they wouldn't ThermoFax. So I wrote to Senator Gruening's office and told him, sent him a copy of the letter that we were sending to Mr. Stigler and told him if he wanted to see it and get photos that they could get photos.

We heard from Mr. Stigler. He thanked us very much for the stuff we sent. I sent a copy of the letter that I sent to Mr. Stigler to Mr. Friedman, who is representing the State in the case. I heard from him this morning. He agrees with me.

I feel that the people in Alaska had been lax in this. I feel that the Commission probably feels that Bartlett and Gruening and Rivers and Egan and all the rest of them have a political job to do in order to satisfy the voters, and I don't think that they pay as much attention probably as they should to some of the stuff that you talked to them about as they do from the actual consumer here in Alaska. We have never done anything about it.

Senator BARTLETT. I think that is a very good point.

Mr. HAMLIN. I brought that out in the letter. Mr. Friedman congratulated me on bringing that out; and stated that in case an adverse condition does come out of it, that without a doubt he will file an appeal and he asked permission to use my letter in his brief, which I will give to him.

So that is what we have been doing since you left 2 or 3 weeks ago. I called their attention to this, so they would know all the facts, that since that time the Alaska Steam has apparently posted a new tariff, where Nos. 1 and 2 items, which are mostly eating items, grocery items, will be brought at the same rate that the other line will. Senator BARTLETT. What? Say that again.

Mr. HAMILIN. I said that the Alaska Steamship Co. has posted a supplement to their tariff and they are now bringing No. 1 and No. 2 items for the same freight rate as their competing line is bringing it. Senator BARTLETT. Nos. 1 and 2 items are what?

Mr. HAMLIN. That is like canned beans, peas, things like that. That is No. 1 items. Stuff that is a little tougher to bring, like bulky stuff, bakery goods, ice cream cones, paper napkins, and stuff like that, which is bulkier and more expensive, that is No. 2 items. That kind of stuff is going to be brought for the same rate that their competition is bringing it.

Senator BARTLETT. Does the competition bring any other items? Mr. HAMLIN. They bring anything that you want them to bring. Senator BARTLETT. And in those other items, are they still lower than Alaska Steam?

Mr. HAMLIN. All I can tell you is as of before October 20, when the new supplement for Alaska Steam went into effect, every carrier has items which they class as n.o.s.-not otherwise specified. Then they have rates for them. Alaska Steam, for southeastern at least, has always used cube measurement on that stuff. I will give you the best example I can on it.

A case of Kotex coming by Alaska Steamship Co. is cubed and costs $4.55 a case, freight. I brought some up on the Griffith Line by weight, and it cost $3.06 per hundredweight, and the case weighs 27 pounds and I think it figured out 84 cents. That was the difference between cubic measurement and weight. As far as I know, the Alaska Steamship's new supplement is taking care of No. 1 and No. 2 goods, but what they are doing on the n.o.s. stuff I don't know and won't

know until next week.

Senator BARTLETT. Is Kotex n.o.s.?

Mr. HAMLIN. N.o.s.-not otherwise specified. I think that that is probably the biggest ill of Alaska, the high cost of transportation.

Senator BARTLETT. I find difficulty in getting it figured out in my own mind how Alaska Steam could come down, because in submitting this rate increase that the State is now fighting, the line held that that wouldn't really provide enough money to give them a decent profit.

Mr. HAMLIN. That was the main reason that Mr. Gosnell and I started this correspondence with you, Senator Gruening, and Representative Rivers and everybody, including the law firm of Friedman, Wolfson, and whoever it is.

Senator BARTLETT. Oscar Chapman, former Secretary of the Interior.

Mr. HAMLIN. That is the reason we started it. It didn't make sense to us that any line should ask for a raise due to expenses, and then when a competing line came in and lowered the rates, that they should automatically meet their competition by lowering theirs right while they are asking for a raise in Washington. That is the reason we started this.

Senator BARTLETT. Maybe it couldn't happen anywhere else except in the transportation industry.

The maritime setup has been thoroughly reorganized within the last 60 days. We hope beneficial results will flow from this. Chiefly the regulatory aspects which have been so important to us but such a minor part of the Commission's job have been entirely divorced from