TARIFF HEARINGS. EVENING SESSION. THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS, Saturday, November 28, 1908. The committee reassembled after recess, at 8 o'clock p. m., the chairman, Hon. Sereno E. Payne, in the chair. STATEMENT OF H. B. VANDERHOEF (resumed). The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed, Mr. Vanderhoef. Mr. VANDERHOEF. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I had just touched the second and third classifications. The second classification was the hat in a hood form and not shaped. The third classification was the hat shaped, which we think should pay more duty than the one not shaped. That hat at present pays 35 per cent [indicating]; that pays 35 per cent [indicating]. On that article there is a large business done and the American manufacturers get no benefit from it whatsoever. The work is done in countries where labor can be performed for one-fourth for what it is performed for here, and if we had the proper protection or duty on those two articles the American manufacturer and American laborer would receive some benefit. In the fourth classification are two hats, one made in England and another made in America. The hats were made with identically the same braids and trimmings and were treated in exactly the same manner and by the same class of labor. On the braid item in the hat we pay 15 per cent duty; on the trimmings (the band) we pay 50 per cent duty; on the leather we pay 35 per cent duty, and on the satin we pay 50 per cent duty. On the lace lining in the hat we pay 60 per cent duty, and so, as I have said before, our little industry gives the Federal Government one-half of 1 per cent of all the duties collected under the present tariff, and we claim that paying duties as we do on every article that goes to make up that hat we are entitled to protection from goods made in foreign lands. When we get the absolute difference in the cost of those two hats we figure the braid item the same in both places, less the 15 per cent in England; the bands the same way, less 50 per cent in England; the lace the same way, 50 per cent, which brings it down to a question of labor. England produces that hat, in point of labor, for $1.88. It costs us $7.50 for performing exactly the same labor on the hat, and under the present duty that hat can be landed here Mr. CLARK. A dozen? Mr. VANDERHOEF. Seven dollars and fifty cents a dozen. That hat can be bought in England by any retailer in this land, or any wholesaler in the land can buy it at 30 shillings, that is, figuring it at $7.50 a dozen, and we have to pay duty, freight, packing charges, which, as near as we can figure it, brings it up to 40 cents per shilling; so that 435654 2585 |