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PARAGRAPH 686-SULPHUR ORE.

This table shows that approximately one-fifth of the consumption is domestic ore, and the placing of an import duty must materially increase the cost of the total annual requirements.

A large tonnage of the pyrites imported contains copper, and supplies a residue used as a flux in smelting domestic copper ores in the middle Western and the Eastern States.

The following table from the Mineral Industry, page 686, shows the production of pyrites ore in this country and the world's production for five years. Figures or the world's total for 1911 are not yet available:

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From the foregoing table it will be seen that the domestic production has not increased during the past five years, notwithstanding the fact that the domestic consumption has very much increased, as shown by the previous table.

Therefore, we assume that the placing of a duty on pyrites ore will not tend to increase the domestic production, as we feel that the known workable deposits, within reach of consuming points, are developed and have been worked to their capacity. Many large consumers have conducted explorations with the object of finding pyrites sufficient for their requirements, but the quantity or quality has been so lacking that the proportion of necessary imports has not been greatly changed, and the differences, from year to year, have been an increase in the consumption of foreign ore. We, therefore, request that pyrites ore remain on the free list.

Respectfully submitted.

THE GRASSELLI CHEMICAL CO.,
E. R. GRASSELLI, Treasurer.

BRIEF BY THE MERRIMAC CHEMICAL CO., BOSTON, MASS.

Hon. OSCAR W. UNDERWOOD,

Chairman Ways and Means Committee, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: On behalf of the Merrimac Chemical Co., I beg to submit the following brief covering certain articles now on the free list under the act of 1909.

SULPHUR ORE AS PYRITES.

Under paragraph 686 of the act of 1909 sulphur ore as pyrites is entered free. Pyrites is an iron ore containing about 50 per cent sulphur and is the basic raw material used in the manufacture of sulphuric acid. Its importance can not be exag gerated. It is the foundation of nearly the entire chemical industry in this country and abroad.

The report of your committee on Schedule A, submitted on February 16, 1912, gives, under Appendix C, considerable information regarding pyrites. At page 173 the report says:

"Pyrites in workable deposits are found very widely, but with the exception of Spain and Portugal no country has sufficient of it for its own needs, and the countries named are called upon to supply the deficiency, which they can easily do. Pyrites mined there are richer and more uniform in sulphur content, burn more freely, and offer other advantages which make them preferable to the manufacturers.

"Of the total consumption of pyrites in the United States in 1909, amounting to nearly 1,000,000 short tons, less than one-fourth was of home production, a small quantity came from Canada, and the rest from the Iberian Peninsula, especially Spain.'

On page 172 of the report will be found a table showing that more than 50 per cent of the total consumption of sulphuric acid in the United States is used in the manufacture of fertilizers.

PARAGRAPH 686-SULPHUR ORE.

Considering the great and necessary uses made of sulphuric acid in connection with the many industries of this country, particularly in connection with agricultural enterprises, it is submitted that sulphur ore as pyrites should remain on the free list.

PLATINUM.

Paragraph 653 of the act of 1909 provides:

"Platinum, unmanufactured or in ingots, bars, plates, sheets, wire, sponge, or scrap, and vases, retorts and other apparatus, vessels, and parts thereof, composed of platinum, for chemical uses."

For the first 10 months of 1912 there were imported into this country $3,634,738 worth of platinum in the manufactured or unmanufactured condition. It is estimated that during the same period the total production in this country did not exceed $50,000 in value.

It is of utmost importance to the chemical industry that platinum remain on the free list. Although the price of platinum has greatly increased in the last few years, so that its use has been discontinued by chemical manufacturers wherever possible, there are certain chemical processes where no substitute can be found. The present price of platinum is about $46 an ounce, while within five years it has sold for about $25 an ounce, and 20 years ago it sold as low as $8 or $9 an ounce.

To place a duty on platinum would place a very severe burden on the production of many chemicals in which the use of this metal is indispensable.

ARSENIC.

Under paragraph 497 of the act of 1909 arsenic is entered free of duty. It is submitted that arsenic should remain on the free list.

Arsenic is the most important basic material entering into the production of agricultural insecticides.

The enormous growth of the use of insecticides in connection with the scientific improvement in our method of fruit growing, etc., make it of great importance that the materials required for their manufacture should be available at the lowest possible prices.

For these reasons it is submitted that arsenic as a basic raw material should remain on the free list.

Respectfully submitted.

S. W. WILDER, President.

STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY JAS. A. MONCURE, RICHMOND, VA.

Hon. OSCAR W. UNDERWOOD,

RICHMOND GUANO Co., Richmond, Va., January 29, 1913.

Chairman Ways and Means Committee, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: We write regarding the free list which we understand is coming up for consideration January 31.

We wish to call your attention to sulphur and sulphur ore, or pyrites.
This country has the largest deposits of phosphate rock in the world.

In order to render this available as fertilizer, it is necessary to treat the rock with sulphuric acid, making acid phosphate, which is the basis of commercial fertilizers used for cotton, corn, tobacco, and other crops.

There are 2,000,000 or more tons of phosphate rock thus used annually in the United States.

The only possible way of making this 2,000,000 tons of phosphate available as plant food is by dissolving in sulphuric acid, which is made chiefly from pyrites, and nearly 1,000,000 tons of pyrites is consumed in the country annually for the purpose, and most of this is imported from Spain, as very little is produced in this country.

To tax sulphur or pyrites would increase the cost of fertilizers, and we know of no interest in this country, needing protection, which would benefit thereby.

Sulphur is also used for various "Sprays" for the protection of crops, especially fruits.

The principle of free plant food is an established one, and the fertilizer industry has been built on it.

PARAGRAPH 686-SULPHUR ORE.

We ask no protection on our products, and think it unfair to tax our raw materials. We respectfully ask that all forms of plant food remain on the free list.

Yours, very truly,

JAS. A. MONCURE,

Chairman Independent Fertilizer Association,
Representing Seventy-odd Fertilizer Manufacturers.

BRIEFS ON SULPHUR ORES.

BOSTON, January 31, 1913.

Hon. OSCAR W. UNDERWOOD,

Chairman Ways and Means Committee,

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: On behalf of the Cochrane Chemical Co., of Boston, Mass., I beg to submit the following brief:

PYRITES.

Under the act of 1909 sulphur ore as pyrites is entered free. Pyrites is an iron ore containing about 50 per cent sulphur, and is the principal raw material of the whole chemical industry. It is the raw material from which sulphuric acid is made, which latter article enters into almost all other chemical operations.

This article is, as stated above, now on the free list, and it is of vital importance to keep it there, because a comparatively small amount is produced in this country and the acid manufacturers are absolutely dependent on the foreign supply. In the years 1900 to 1909 the United States produced only 849,066 tons, while in that period it consumed 2,792,264 tons, showing it was obliged to import 70 per cent of its consumption.

Moreover, statistics show that more than 50 per cent of the sulphuric acid produced in the United States goes into the manufacture of fertilizers, and any duty placed on the raw material pyrites must necessarily in the end work a great hardship on the farming industry of this country.

We respectfully present these facts for your most earnest consideration.
Yours, very truly,

COCHRANE CHEMICAL Co.,
LINDSLEY LORING, Treasurer.

Hon. OSCAR W. UNDERWOOD,

BAUGH & SONS Co., Philadelphia, January 29, 1913.

Chairman Ways and Means Committee, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: Millions of tons of domestic phosphate rock, animal bones, tankage, etc., are treated with sulphuric acid manufactured in the United States from pyrites imported from Spain free of duty.

The price of the manufactured or finished fertilizer, therefore, is cheaper to the consumer than it would be if duty were paid on imported pyrites.

The best and most suitable pyrites that can be obtained for the purpose is that which is brought from Spain. Indeed there is no satisfactory substitute known at present.

In the manufacture of our own make of finished fertilizers we require about 75,000 to 100,000 tons annually of sulphuric acid, for the manufacture of which acid the pyrites from Spain are exclusively used.

In this concise and simple statement will be found upon a moment's reflection the effect upon the consumer of fertilizers of an imposed duty on imported pyrites, i. e., higher cost for pyrites; consequently higher cost for the domestic sulphuric acid, and the last and most serious result, of higher cost of finished fertilizers used by farmers throughout the United States.

Very truly, yours,

PARAGRAPH 687.

B. H. BREWSTER, Jr., Vice President.

Sulphuric acid which at the temperature of sixty degrees Fahrenheit does not exceed the specific gravity of one and three hundred and eighty one-thousandths, for use in manufacturing superphosphate of lime or artificial manures

PARAGRAPH 689-TAPIOCA FLOUR.

of any kind, or for any agricultural purposes: Provided, That upon all sulphuric acid imported from any country, whether independent or a dependency, which imposes a duty upon sulphuric acid imported into such country from the United States, there shall be levied and collected a duty of one fourth of one cent per pound.

PARAGRAPH 688.

Tamarinds.

PARAGRAPH 689.

Tapioca, tapioca flour, cassava or cassady.

TAPIOCA FLOUR.

TESTIMONY OF JOHN A. T. HULL.

The witness was duly sworn by the chairman.

Mr. HULL. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I want to very briefly call your attention to one or two matters in the administrative part of the bill, and will state very frankly that I do not know that I am at all competent to advise the committee as to the best method of procuring the tariff desired, and if I can only secure the attention of the committee to the matter I will have accomplished all that I hope to do in this matter.

I desire first to call the attention of the committee to the subject of dumping. The people of this country have a prejudice against our manufacturers dumping their goods in foreign countries, and should be willing to protect our manufacturers from dumping by foreigners in the markets of the United States. I take the liberty of submitting a very short brief on that, calling attention to the laws of Canada and some of the other countries.

The next administrative feature that I desire to call attention to is that in regard to drawbacks. The present law has a section on drawbacks. It works a hardship on our manufacturers in requiring the factories, especially in corn products, to close down the factory and clean out all the domestic product and then close the factory, when they have run on the foreign product, until it is entirely eliminated, before they can start up again in the domestic product, causing quite a loss to the manufacturers in that respect. And about all we hope to do in this connection is to call the attention of the committee to it and quote the laws of France and some other countries.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that in the law, or is it a regulation?
Mr. HULL. It is a regulation.

The CHAIRMAN. That is a department regulation?

Mr. HULL. A department regulation.

Mr. HILL. It is in the law-you refer to the identification?

Mr. HULL. The identification. The regulation as to how it shall

be done is made by the Treasury Department.

Mr. HILL. What you want to get is a substitution clause?
Mr. HULL. I would like to have a substitution clause.

Mr. HILL. You will remember that was in the bill as passed by the House, the Payne bill, and it was stricken out in the Senate.

Mr. HULL. I would like a substitution clause by which the Government can be absolutely protected, but have the manufacturers put to very much less loss in transferring from one line of work to the other.

PARAGRAPH 689-TAPIOCA FLOUR.

Mr. HAMMOND. You want to quote an amount of value in its identification of product?

Mr. HULL. Yes. France, I think, has a valuation established on starches-in each bushel of corn so much starch. I do not know that that is fair, because the French law gives such a valuation on the amount in a rate that it is practically a bonus; and I would hardly approach this committee with the hope of getting any bonuses.

Mr. HILL. Mr. Hull, we considered the French law when the substitution clause was put in the Payne tariff bill as it passed the House, but it was not thought wise to adopt that, because the French Government gives a certificate which is negotiable and transferable to another person.

Mr. HULL. Yes.

Mr. HILL. But the section put in the Payne tariff bill was a substitution clause for the same parties that made the importation. I think it was stricken out by the Senate.

Mr. HULL. I sincerely hope that, in the interest of our manufacturers, regardless of the question of the amount of the tariff, some method will be reached by which they will not be put to the expense of being compelled to permit their factories to remain idle for days at a time while transferring from one line of work to the other. If it is intended to give the manufacturers the drawback, it ought to be given to them with as little expense to them and their manufacturing concerns as it is possible to do.

The CHAIRMAN. Isn't there great danger of the Treasury being robbed by a proposition of that kind?

Mr. HULL. That is a question, Mr. Chairman, it seems to me, that the committee can work out better than any outsider can. I imagine that it can be fixed so that there would be very little danger of the Treasury being robbed. Of course, you have to have the administrative part of it, to a certain extent, designed upon the absolute proofs, unless you do adopt the French rule of having a certain fixed amount-when, for instance, to a bushel of corn so many pounds of starch.

Another fact that comes in there-the by-products of these corn products are free, and yet this virtually levies a tariff on our people in the nature of an extra expense by taking advantage of this drawback.

Now, as I said in the beginning, Mr. Chairman, I am not expert enough in the tariff to go into the administrative features of it with the hope of specially enlightening this committee. What I want to do is to call the attention of the committee to these matters that seem to me to require some changes. The main argument that I desire to make to this committee refers more especially to the question of starches, with sago and tapioca, in the free list. I referred to this matter before the committee on a previous occasion. There is no question in my mind that sago and tapioca flours are starches. They were retained on the free list through what, to my mind, is clearly a misunderstanding of the subject when it was before the Congress, when the present law was enacted. The discussion in the Senate, I think, clearly proves this. Senator Gallinger called attention to the

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