year 1920 are a relatively unimportant factor, importation supplying only one-fifth of the consumption. The gloves import trade has been hurt considerably by war conditions, which have practically reduced it to one-half of its former level of 1,183,443 dozen pairs, imported in fiscal year 1913. This has given American manufacture an opportunity to replace the gloves formerly supplied by foreign countries, a trade which has labored since the war with restrictions and difficulties of all kinds, chiefly lack of materials, increased cost of production, and taxation, higher freights and insurance rates. To-day imported gloves play but a secondary rôle in the supply of American consump tion, and their field is practically confined to women's gloves, which is not the princ pal line of production in this country. While, in fact, 76.8 per cent of the domestic production was in 1914 of men's gloves, 9.4 per cent of gloves for boys, only 13.8 per cent represented women's and children's gloves. On the other hand practically 97 per cent of the importation in fiscal year 1920 was of women's gloves, and only 25 per cent of men's gloves. Importation, therefore, takes place in a line of production that affects the lear the domestic manufacture. The latter, notwithstanding the higher cost of labor this country, can partly offset this disadvantage by more intensive, more systemat: and quicker methods of production, by lesser cost of power, by greater economy freight and distributing expenses, and by the privilege of nearness to market Bthe further aid of reasonable and not prohibitory duties, which are sufficient for pr tection on an article, like gloves, of ordinary apparel and not a luxury, is well able maintain its dominant position in the supply of consumption, notwithstanding an temporary ability, through abnormally depreciated exchange, of foreign manuiture to supply this market at attractive prices. Any such possibility is, howeve only temporary, as no stable business can be developed on a unstable exchange, wi is bound to recover from its present depression in a no distant future. Had it not been for the fact that the rates on gloves of the Underwood tariff are of a prohibitory character, importations would have been impossible since the vi Now that it is showing symptoms of recovery, after unprecedented difficulties should not be killed by the reenactment of prohibitive rates such as those prope in the Fordney tariff bill equivalent to an increase of at least 100 per cent on for cost. This chamber, after careful study of the fiscal régime on gloves, begs leave to sha hereunto a comparative statement of the present (Underwood) and the prope (Fordney) rates, together with its own recommendations in the matter, to which respectfully bespeaks the consideration of this honorable committee: 3. All men's leather Lined with fur........ All pique and prix seam gloves. Not over 14 inches in Not over 14 inches in 25 cents extra per dozen 50 cents extra per dozen Not over 12 inches in $2.40 extra per dozen Not over 14 inche✔ Not over 14 inch s length, $3 per d pairs and 33 17 extra for each ite excess. $3.50 extra per d: pairs. 75 cents extra per d pairs. $2 extra per dozen pairs.. Lined with fur or leather, $3 extra per daren par 25 cents extra per dozen $4 extra per dozen pairs. Embroidered or embellished, 40 cents extra per dozen pairs. ARGOLS OR CRUDE TARTARS AND WINE LEES, AND TARTARIC ACID. [Paragraphs 1 and 9.] Argols and tartaric raw materials, containing no more than 90 per cent of potassium hitartrate, are subjected by the Fordney tariff bill to a duty of 5 per cent ad valorem, namely, to the same rate as at present in force and containing above 90 per cent of potassium bitartrate to 5 cents per pound, the same rate being levied on cream of tartar and Rochelle salts; tartaric acid is rated at 6 cents per pound. The proposed rates represent an increase of 100 per cent on argols containing more than 90 per cent of potassium bitartrate on cream of tartar and Rochelle salts, and an increase of $7.50 per cent on tartaric acid. Argols and wine lees are the raw materials from which cream of tartar, Rochelle alts, and tartaric acid are manufactured. They are by-products of the wine industry, the only available source of tartaric acid which has not yet been obtained synthetically. Tartaric acid and its salts are used chiefly in the preparation of medicinal compounds and of food products, as in baking powders and beverages, as mordants in the printing of fabrics and in other technical uses. The most important use is in the manufacture of one variety of baking powder, extensively consumed in this country in domestic bread making and also exported. The yearly output of the baking-powder industry alone represented in the United States, according to the census of 1914, a value of nearly $22,500,000 and an invested capital of over $35,000,000, giving work to over 3,600 persons. Exports of these, which had, like the industry, been steadily increasing, represented in fiscal year 1918 nearly $2,000,000. Even before prohibition was enacted, which cut off any American supply, the American wine industry furnished only 1 per cent of the world supply of tartaric raw materials. This country today is wholly dependent upon the wine-making countries of the Mediterranean, and chiefly upon Italy, France, Algeria, Spain, and Portugal, for its importations of tartaric raw materials. Importations, taking one year with another and allowing for war or tariff conditions, have been pretty steady, with a tendency of late years to increase, as shown by the fact that, while during the first five years of the past decade they averaged yearly about 28,035,000 pounds, they have during the last five years averaged 30,050,000 pounds. It has been the traditional policy of the United States to encourage the importation of these crude materials, and this policy should be adhered to by leaving unchanged the present ad valorem rate of duty on argols or crude tartars and wine lees, which befits a product the value of which varies according to its actual contents in tartaric acid. Imports of cream of tartar gained with the removal of the 5-cent rate which obtained previous to fiscal year 1914, and had kept importations for the period 1911-1913 at a yearly average of 57,710 pounds. The present rate of 24 cents per pound, which replaced the former in 1914, has increased importations to a yearly average for the three fiscal years ending June 30, 1918, to 68,556 pounds, the large amounts imported in 1914 and 1915, respectively, of 812,857 and 764,868 pounds being due not solely to the change in the tariff but mostly to the stress of war conditions, stimulating importations in order to provide for emergencies as evinced by their falling back to & more conservative average in the following years. This shows that the readjustment of the rate under the tariff act of 1913 has operated advantageously for the interest of revenue and practically without prejudice to American refiners, as the unabated, in fact increased, imports of raw materials clearly demonstrate. A somewhat analogous course is shown by the importations of tartaric acid, which from a yearly average of 149,014 pounds for the period of fiscal years 1909-1913, when the rate was first 7 and then 5 cents per pound, increased with its reduction to 34 cents in the last tariff act to an annual average of 393,588 pounds during the last five fiscal years, after having attained somewhat striking totals in 1914 with 848,574 pounds, Loder the stimulus of the tariff change, and in 1915 with 820,105 pounds under the stress of providing for war emergencies. It is true that importation from a moderate crease in previous years, accentuated somewhat in 1920, when a total of 797,367 pounds was reached; but this is solely to the exceptional conditions of the foreign exchange, which have prevailed during that period, the only time when it became Pssible for foreign manufacturers, on account of the unprecedented depreciation of the lira, to sell their articles to any extent on this market, which had always before been controlled almost entirely by home manufacturers. Had it not been for the *xceptionally abnormal exchange, foreign manufacturers would not have been able ell to any appreciable extent on this market, the tariff having, since the war, payed a relatively unimportant rôle in influencing imports into the United States in comparison to the exchange, with its striking fluctuations. The present spasmodic conditions of exchange can not, however, last much longer as they are neither in the interest of Europe nor of this country. A more settled and stable condition is bound to follow in the no great distant future, and it would unque tionably be unfair and inequitable to base our calculation in assessing duties to-is on the existing disparity, which can not endure. If they were so based, upon return to more normal conditions the protection accorded to domestic manufacturers woul be increased to such extent as to work prohibitively on importation, and, while giv the manufacturers in this country an undesirable monopoly of the market, would alas void the purposes of revenue and destroy a sound competition that alone woul ultimately benefit the consumer. The cost of manufacture in Italy has increased greatly since the war, labor being paid now for an 8-hour day fivefold what it received before the war for a 9-hour day In the supply of materials required in the manufacture other than tartaric raw mate rials it is almost superfluous to state that Italy is at a great disadvantage when c pared with this country, expecially in the items of machinery, coal, and chem supplies, which it has to import from this country, on which it has to pay freight and duty, and which offset any disadvantage of the American manufacturer for the dine ence of freight paid on the greater bulk of the tartaric crude material in comparia to the finished products. As soon as an improvement in exchange shall have eliminated that the margin which only of late has made possible importations into this country, and as soon a more settled state of industrial conditions, both here and abroad, shall have mai: more stable the present fluctuating cost of production, it will be seen that the pres rate on tartaric acid is sufficiently protective for domestic manufacturers, who have found in the increased consumption of tartaric acid, through the enactment of per hibition, a compensating factor for the temporarily increased imports of this use organic acid. On the contrary, the proposed increase from 3 to 6 cents per pound on tartaric s could operate as injurious to the importation of this commodity as did the Dingi rate of 7 cents and the Payne-Aldrich rate of 5 cents, which practically killed it import trade. The present rates of 3 cents per pound on tartaric acid and of 2 cents per pouDİ on cream of tartar have stimulated imports without visible prejudice to Amenas manufacturers, whose importations of crude materials have continued to be equiva to more than five times those of the refined articles, and appear therefore to the chamber as the optimum rates both for the purpose of revenue and for that of prote tion, and this chamber therefore asks that they continue unchanged. Should, ho ever, an increase be deemed unavoidable, this chamber respectfully recommeza that the rate on tartaric acid be fixed at no more than 5 cents per pound. CITRATE OF LIME AND CITRIC ACID. [Paragraphs 1 and 46.] The Fordnev tariff bill places a duty of 7 cents per pound on citrate of lime increase of 700 per cent against the present duty of 1 cent per pound, on raw terial necessary to American industry and hardly produced in this country. Citrate of lime, the raw material from which citric acid is manufactured, is an dispensable material to American manufacture, of which this country impor annually before the war between five and six million pounds and to a somia) greater extent in fiscal years 1915, 1916, and 1917 to make up for the lesser an imported in 1914, when it had just been taken off the free list, and placed for rever purposes under a duty of 1 cent per pound. During the two fiscal years tha lowed our entry into the war, importations were restricted owing to the unsect conditions of shipping, so that receipts in fiscal year of 1920, amounting to alt 10.500.000 pounds, made up for the deficiency of the two previous years. While California has, since the war, started the industry of citrus by-produ its production is still of small importance in comparison to the large amount of rate of lime needed by American manufacturers of citric acid. In 1919 the fornia production of this raw material was reported equal to about 232,000 pou and that of citric acid to about 75,000 pounds, which means that California do supply at the present time more than 5 per cent of the citrate of lime annually ported in the United States, and does not produce more than 2 per cent of the e acid manufactured in this country. Even allowing for such increase in the outs of domestic citrate of lime as seems reasonable, in view of 75 per cent increas acreage of now nonbearing lemon trees coming into production in the distant fut it is hardly to be expected that the output of citrate of lime in California woule ase to any important percentage of the supply needed by American manufacturers citric acid. The production of it has increased from 2,102,256 pounds in 1916 to 32,897 in 1917, notwithstanding the lowering of the rate of duty from 7 to 5 cents pound at the last tariff revision, which deduction, while it increased importations n a yearly average of 78,964 pounds during the period of fiscal years 1910-1913 to average of 571,765 pounds since 1913, did not reduce the average annual importa1 of citrate of lime into this country. The latter increased on the contrary from early average of 5,152,864 pounds in the period 1910-1913 to one of 5,867,000 durthe last seven fiscal years ending June 30, 1920. This shows that the moderate ering of the rate on citric acid has not worked to the prejudice of American manuturers, while any loss to revenue ($10,435) has been amply offset by the gain from 1-cent rate on citrate of lime ($58,670) assessed for revenue purpose. he manufacture of citrate of lime in Sicily, from which is derived 95 per cent of supply of this imported raw material, is an important feature of the lemon industry, hich it absorbs the culls, representing about 30 per cent of the lemon production. ad to be organized in a sort of cooperative form to insure its existence from the hous depression that ruled formerly. During the war, which had a depressing ct on the exportation of the fruit, owing to unsettled shipping conditions, it conted into citrate of lime the surplus cull production, which was somewhat greater n usual, but owing to the scarcity of labor, the shorter hours of work, at least the fold increase in wages, and the much higher cost of coal and other materials the of manufacture has also augmented greatly the price of citrate of lime, which was 5 lire per quintal, having risen to 700 lire per quintal in 1919. nder the increased cost of this raw material and other disadvantages confronting ufacturers in this country, such as increased freights, increased costs of labor and aterials, etc., and considering that even for a good many years to come California not be in a position to supply any appreciable amount of this article, we believe no higher duty than the present rate of 1 cent per pound should be levied on ate of lime and such is the earnest and respectful recommendation of this chamber. he Fordney tariff bill proposes a duty of 12 cents per pound on citric against 5 cents he present tariff. itric acid is consumed principally in the manufacture of beverages and effervescent : also in some lines of technical use. After the spurt in imports, caused by the ment in 1914 of amounts which had been held up previously in expectation of a ff change, and in 1915 by war-emergency requirements, especially since New York aced London to a large extent for the reexportation of citric acid to Central America, West Indies, and Far East, it was only with the abnormal conditions of exchange, ch in this, as in many other cases, has influenced importations more than the tariff i. that any chance of business has existed for imported citric acid, a condition h is only temporary and will disappear as soon as the exchange shall have dropped less abnormal level, an improvement which can not be too far distant. would be not only unwise, but also unfair, in the present unsettled and particuhysteric condition of the exchange, when cost of production abroad, as well as . can not always be reliably calculated, to base rates of duty, which are destined ecome permanent, on criteria to offset the depreciated currency of the country of in, as, upon return to more stable conditions this would eliminate any further ibility of importation and give the manufacturers in this country a monopoly of rket which they are unable to supply. et of production has increased in this country since the war, it has to a far greater nt augmented on the other side, where the economic changes brought about by war have been felt even more acutely than here, in the cost of labor no less than in of fuel and materials other than citrate of lime, in freights no less than in overhead es, without the favorable prospect for increased consumption of citric acid shown has country since the advent of prohibition. je domestic industry, notwithstanding the higher cost of labor enjoys over Sicily ded advantages in the cost of production of citric acid. In fact, while citrus culls alifornia are shipped to the factory by the carload, in Sicily they have to be din most cases by animal traction at a relatively higher cost of transportation. ver, the cost of fuel and materials, important items of the cost of production, is ter in Sicily than in this country, and the wider use of labor saving machinery lomestic manufacturers counterbalances to a great extent the higher cost of labor. ith reference to a statement made by H. M. May of the Exchange Products Co. of na, Calif., before the Ways and Means Committee of the House, relative to the cost orking 1 ton of lemons into citric acid, reported in a total of $14.76, equal to a unitary of citric acid of cents 36.9, this chamber wishes to point out that the reported irs of said cat pro rather exaggerated, especially the item of labor reported for a of lemons equal to $4.69, as 34 hours of labor required for such elaboration are certainly not paid in California, $4.69. The unitary yield of citric acid from 1 ton vẻ lemons is moreover reported of only 40 pounds while it is in fact of 43.69 pounds which would lower to 31.5 cents the unitary cost of production of citric acid. Under the present rapid readjustment to a prewar base of the price of citric and the present 5-cent rate represents already a protection of over 10 per cent to the American manufacturer. In consideration of the afore stated facts, showing that the present duty of 5 cente per pound on citric acid, while sufficiently protective for American manufacturers, is also the safest for the purposes of revenue and the interest of consumers, this chamber recommends respectfully that it be maintained unchanged and that, should an crease be unavoidable, a return to no higher rate than that of 7 cents per pound of the Payne-Aldrich Act, be adopted. CITRON AND CITRON PEEL IN BRINE AND ORANGE AND LEMON PEEL IN BRINE. [Paragraph 740.] Citron and citron peel is not produced in this country and has to be import entirely for the requirements of confectioners, which is done by shipping this ras material of the candying industry preserved in brine. This commodity has alwa been admitted free of duty, but the Fordney tariff bill places a duty on it of 2 ca per pound, wholly unjustified, as there is no domestic industry to protect, and the import amounts, therefore, to a burden on confectioners and consumers. Likewise the orange and lemon peel referred to in the above paragraph is the p of these fruits, shipped in brine, for the purpose of candying or preserving. It essentially a raw material required by confectioners and not obtainable in commer cial quantities except from the countries where the citrus-fruit by-products indust makes this by-product available. The quantity produced in California, where th citrus by-products industry has just been started, is yet insignificant in comparse to the demand. Importation of this article is therefore devoid of any competitie character. It is important that manufacturers of candied fruit in this country should obta these products as cheaply as possible, which could not be the case if they were be dened with duty. For obvious reasons, making further explanation superfluous, ti chamber, in the interest of American industry and labor, earnestly entreats yo honorable committee to return these articles to the free list. ALMONDS. [Paragraph 754.] The Fordney tariff bill raised the duty of 33 per cent, namely, from 3 to 4 cents pound on almonds not shelled, and of 300 per cent, namely, from 4 to 12 cents p pound, on shelled almonds. While almonds may be classed by some as a luxury, they in fact represent a ver valuable food product. They are a nutritious and healthy food. Those imported the shell find their utility for household use, while the shelled supply the bakers a confectionery trade. During the past few years, when prices soared considerably, demand was greatly curtailed, showing conclusively that this article can not star more than a reasonable impost. Any considerable increase in the price of alme can not fail to do immeasurable damage to their consumption. The California oct has grown to considerable proportions, the 1919 crop, which was the largest ent recorded, being estimated at 7,250 tons. This is ample proof that domestic prod tion is sufficiently protected by the present tariff rates, which have in no way retar the development of this industry in that State. In the same year 1919-20 importan of almonds unshelled amounted to only 3,700 tons, while that of the shelled amour to over 13,000 tons. While the importation has shown increase, it has been gradual, especially i unshelled almonds. The shelled has shown the most striking increase, having dool! since 1913. The reason for this is that shelled nuts are not an industry here, and th trade which it supplies, the bakery and confectionery, have shown tremend expansion during that period. The more rapid increase in the demand of California unshelled almonds as comp with the imported shows conclusively that the California production has little to from the competition of the imported. The present duty of 3 cents a pound rep sents about one-fifth of the value, and it is amply sufficient to cover any protection. |