years. I will not say what it is to-day. There are other gentlemen in the room who may have looked into it.

Mr. HILL. Is it a patented article?

Mr. QUEENY. No, sir.

Mr. DALZELL. If it is not manufactured here, the price must be regulated by foreign competition.

Mr. QUEENY. I can not speak positively on that subject, but I think it likely. I do not see any reason why that should be on the free list when there is plenty of raw material in this country, and only a little encouragement is needed to make it here.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. What is the raw material?

Mr. QUEENY. The willow tree.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. What is it used for?

Mr. QUEENY. For medicines, for asthmatic troubles.

Mr. UNDERWOOD. Would a duty of 25 per cent materially increase the cost of the preparation into which it enters?

Mr. QUEENY. No; not to any extent at all.

Mr. GRIGGS. Is $16,000 worth annually imported worth fooling about-worth establishing a plant for?

Mr. QUEENY. A plant can be installed in another plant-that is, it can be added to the articles of manufacture. We have undertaken to specialize some chemical products-things that are almost exclusively manufactured on the other side. We have followed that theory for years. We want to make the things that are now controlled in Europe.

Mr. GRIGGS. The reason why I made that remark is that there seems to be no demand for it.

Mr. QUEENY. There is demand. Even if it is only 6,000 pounds, it is $20,000 worth of business additional, or thereabouts.

Mr. GRIGGS. That would be specializing with a vengeance, I think. Mr. HILL. Is this exclusively a German product?

Mr. QUEENY. German and English; more particularly made in England than in Germany.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, you can proceed to the next topic.

Mr. QUEENY. Chemicals is all that you will take up to-day?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir. We must keep it separate.

Mr. QUEENY. Then I have nothing further to-day.

STATEMENT OF MR. STEWART CHAPLIN, REPRESENTING THE SEMET-SOLVAY COMPANY, OF SYRACUSE, N. Y.

The CHAIRMAN. What subject do you desire to speak on? Mr. CHAPLIN. The subject relates to a number of articles produced by the distillation of coal. It is similar to the application apparently that has been named in one respect, in that it relates to articles not manufactured in this country; but our application is to take these articles off the free list and impose a duty, in order that they may be manufactured here. With the permission of the committee, I would like to just state in a few words what the point of our application is, and then ask our chemist to proceed.

The CHAIRMAN. Proceed in your own way. Mr. Chaplin.

Mr. CHAPLIN. A number of these articles that I have enumerated here [indicating typewritten statement] are used in connection with the making of dyes, and some of them are used as dyes. They come under paragraphs 464, 469, 472, 424, and 626 in the free list.

They are not manufactured in this country, but the raw material from which they can be produced is manufactured in large quantities in this country. Tar is manufactured in very large quantities, from which, indeed, directly and indirectly, they come. Our company produces 25,000,000 gallons of tar per year.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee takes it for granted that there is any quantity of tar produced in this country.

Mr. CHAPLIN. Yes. It is coal tar. The tar itself has a market for a great many purposes, but the market is not large enough to take up at any price the total tar produced, and there is a considerable fraction, running sometimes up to 20 per cent, that is used for fuel at a very poor price that could be used to good advantage for the manufacture of all these articles in this country.

Also, as these things are produced in the distillation of tar in byproduct of coke ovens with a great saving of fuel, the result would be to increase the amount of coal that is coked in the by-product ovens, where they save these things and save a great deal of waste of fuel. It is computed by the Government that the saving would be some 8,000,000 tons of coal a year if that were carried out to a great extent. I would like to ask Mr. Pennock if there are any technical questions connected with that, to explain them, as he is familiar with the technical features.

Mr. Chaplin submitted the following document:

STATEMENT OF SUGGESTED TARIFF ON CHEMICAL PRODUCTS COVERED BY PARAGRAPHS 464, 469, 472, 524, AND 626 OF THE FREE LIST.

We respectfully submit herewith a petition for the placing of a tariff upon certain chemicals made from coal tar as a raw material and used principally in the color and dye industry. These chemicals may be placed in two catagories. First. Coal tar, pitch, and “crude coal-tar products," or primary coal-tar products, resulting from the distillation of coal ta" and the proper separation of the distillate.

Second. "Intermediate coal-tar products for dyestuffs." These products result from the treatment of the crude or primary tar product with certain chemicals to produce a more refined or complex substance which, though not colors, may be used in producing colors and in dyeing.

The chemicals considered in our petition are at present under the Dingley tariff law placed upon the free list.

The chemicals and the respective tariffs which we would ask to be put upon them follow:

First class, crude or primary coal-tar products.

We have included in the list of primary coal-tar products creosote oil, but have not set against it any tariff; while we feel that through the development of the coke-oven industry the amount of creosote oil available will be considerably increased if some protection by tariff is afforded, still we refrain from petitioning for tariff on this article, appreciating the immediate demands for large quantities of this product for the creosoting of railroad ties, timbers, and piles, resulting in an important conservation of our forests.

See

tion.

Second class: Intermediate coal-tar products for dyestuffs.

Name of chemical.

Tariff petitioned for.

In presenting our petition we beg to submit facts which to us seem to be quite sufficient reason for the placing of the tariff upon the various chemicals enumerated.

First. By the protection from foreign competition offered by these tariffs on crude coal-tar products and intermediate coal-tar products for dyestuff, an industry now not in existence will be established, and in time, after several years of successful operation of manufactories producing the intermediate coaltar products, the beginning of a coal-tar color industry in the United States will be possible.

Second. The establishment of an industry producing the intermediate coaltar products for dyestuffs will tend to conserve the mineral resources of our country, particularly coal, through the building of an increased number of retort coke ovens and the displacement of the uneconomical beehive oven. This will be the result, for additional revenue derived from the sale of intermediate coal-tar products for dyestuffs will induce the capitalist to construct the more expensive but more economical retort coke oven.

To illustrate how retort coke ovens would conserve the supply of coal in the United States, we would refer to the census of manufactures, 1905, in which C. E. Munroe states that had retort coke ovens been used instead of beehive ovens in 1905, 2,100,000 more tons of coke would have been produced from the 37,000,000 tons of coal coked, or there would have been a saving of about 4,000,000 tons of coal; not only would there have been this saving in coal, but the value of the tar which could be recovered would amount of $6,000,000; the ammonium sulphate, which could be used on the soil, would be $18,000,000, and the surplus gas saved, now wasted, would amount to a value of $6,000,000, and would supply power enough through gas engines to operate all the mills in the State of Pennsylvania.

The tabulated statement of Mr. C. E. Munroe follows:

The establishment of an industry for the manufacture of the intermediate coal-tar products for dyestuffs" at the time of the Dingley tariff was impossible because this country could not supply the required raw materials and there was no reason for a tariff, but now this obstacle is removed. In 1896 there were in existence less than 300 retort coke ovens. There are at present more than 4,000; our company alone, the Semet-Solvay Company, has in store over 500,000 gallons of crude benzol, for which there is no market. This and more that would be available from other ovens and new ovens to be constructed could be utilized in the manufacture of “intermediate coal-tar products for dyestuff's" if only tariff protection were given.

We would ask also for a duty on these products as an offset to the advantage in freight that the foreign producer has over the domestic producer; for example, benzol may be shipped from Liverpool, England, to New Orleans, by return cotton steamers, at a lower rate than from Philadelphia by water; the same is true of shipments to Boston from Philadelphia. Respectfully submitted.

SEMET-SOLVAY COMPANY,

Syracuse, N. Y.,
By STEWART CHAPLIN and
J. D. PENNOCK.

STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN E. PENNOCK, CHEMIST, REPRESENTING THE SEMET-SOLVAY COMPANY, OF SYRACUSE, N. Y.

The CHAIRMAN. I see you are connected with the Semet-Solvay Company, of Syracuse, N. Y., according to this statement here. Is that correct?

Mr. PENNOCK. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. That is not the old Solvay Company, but the new one?

Mr. PENNOCK. The Semet-Solvay Company is a company organized in the United States to operate the Semet-Solvay coke ovens. The Solvay is the originator of the Solvay process for the manufacture of soda and salt in Europe.

The CHAIRMAN. Proceed, Mr. Pennock.

Mr. PENNOCK. To elaborate somewhat upon what Mr. Chaplin has already stated, what we wish to apply for is protection for an infant industry. It must come to that. In the year 1897, when the Dingley tariff was put forth, there was absolutely no use to consider this subject. There was produced in the United States an insufficient quantity of the raw material for the production of the primary crude coal-tar products and for the production of the intermediate coal-tar products to be used in the manufacture of dyes, and naturally not enough for the colors themselves. In 1895 and 1896 there were constructed a considerable number of retort coke ovens. Perhaps I might say that at that time there were in operation 150 or 200 ovens, coking 6 or 7 tons of coal per day. At the present time, or since then the industry of retort coke ovens has so progressed that there are now in operation some 4.000 retort coke ovens. There is, therefore, ample raw material in the way of tar and benzol and toluol and those other products to produce these intermediate coal-tar products which are made in this country in large quantities and are used directly by the dyer, the printer, and so forth. Now, it is therefore our application that a duty be placed upon these raw materials, the tar and the pitch and the primary coal-tar products, such as benzol, toluol, and xylol, and so forth, and on the intermediate coaltar products for dyestuffs, which are the primary coal-tar products

treated with other chemicals to produce the intermediate ones. All of these are upon the free list, and we would apply for a tariff upon those products, for we feel that with a certain protection-to name, for instance, one or two of the intermediate coal-tar products for dyestuffs, aniline, and aniline salts-if there was a slight duty upon those products they could be manufactured in this country at the present time from the large amount of raw material we have at present.

And further, I would like to say that could an industry be established in this country successfully through a slight protection in the way of tariff, it would be a stepping stone to the ultimate introduction of the manufacture of coal-tar colors, which at the present time we all know are made to a great extent in Germany, which practically controls the production of the world, an industry which, as you all know, was started in England in 1872 and 1875, and gradually through scientific methods the Germans took the business away from them, and now they control 85 or 90 per cent of the production of the world's coal-tar colors. There is no reason in the world why it should not be established in this country, but it will take time; and, as I say, what must first be done is to give to the chemical manufacturers of this country some protection on what might be considered to be the raw materials.

Let us manufacture those in this country and supply them to the dyer, and printer, and so on; and, having established those, it will be an easy matter later on to gradually work in the manufacture of the more complicated and more scientific preparations of the coal-tar colors. This will come about; that is, as I have stated, the large supply of this raw material has come about through the introduction of the retort coke oven.

I would like to refer to a statement that was made by Prof. C. E. Monroe, of Washington, in his compilation for the Government entitled "The Census of Manufactures of 1905," under coke. He there states that there was produced, or distilled, or put through the coke-oven process, some 37,000,000 tons of coal in the year 1905. Now, as we all know, the by-product of the coke oven is from distillation of the valuable by-products, and not only that, the yield of coke from a ton of coal by beehives is perhaps 65 per cent of the coke, whereas by the retort coke oven the yield per ton of coke is something in the neighborhood of 75 per cent. That would figure out that instead of, say, 37,000,000 tons of coal producing the coke necessary for the industries of this country, if that coal had been coked in the retort coke ovens only about 32,000,000 tons of coal would have been required. In other words, four to five million tons of coal would not have been mined for the coke production and would have been left in the ground, thereby conserving the mineral resources, particularly coal.

So much for coke.

The CHAIRMAN. How extensively would you have to get into the manufacture of these coal-tar preparations in order to produce that result?

Mr. PENNOCK. Of course if we should turn right over to the retort coke ovens, it would produce more raw material than we would be required to produce to make all the colors in the world.

The CHAIRMAN. If we put this protective duty on these articles you speak of and should manufacture all that is used in this country,