and would throw out of employment 10,000 men directly engaged in the lead mining, milling, and smelting industry, earning an average yearly wage of $1,000 each, or $10,000,000, and men in allied employments, such as railroads, agriculture, merchandise, assaying, sampling, and coal mining, earning an average yearly wage of $1,200 each, or $12,000,000.

Mexico produces yearly base bullion amounting in 1906 to 89,497 metric tons, 80,000 short tons, and annually exports to El Paso, Tex., smelter about 150,000 tons of ore, averaging 15 per cent lead, producing 22,500 short tons of lead metal.

Mexican investments in mines by American capital is upward of $100,000,000.

The following statement of wages of mine workers in Mexico is taken from House document, volume 66, Tariff Hearings, volume 1, Fifty-fourth Congress, second session, 1896–97.

Wages have not increased, upon the whole, in the Republic of Mexico during the past ten years. The following statement is made on page 404 of Document 145, part 5, issued by the International Bureau of American Republics in 1904:

But it is true that with the great mass of Mexican laborers there has been but little, if any, change in the amount of wages paid.

The following is the statement of wages paid mine labor in the intermountain States of the United States: Shaft men, $4 to $5 per day; blacksmiths and carpenters, $4 to $5 per day; engineers, $3.50 to $5 per day; miners, $2.75 to $4 per day; laborers, $2.50 to $3 per day.

Mine labor in Spain is about 25 per cent less than similar labor in Mexico.

Many lead mines in Mexico now closed could be reopened with a market for base bullion.

Mexican lead can be put into the United States for 2 cents per pound, which price would be prohibitive with the American miner having the present low price of silver (about 50 cents) to contend with.

Where formerly lead was considered a by-product, it is now the primary metal mined for in Utah, with silver as the by-product.

STATEMENT OF MR. EDWARD A. ROZIER, OF FARMINGTON, MO.

Mr. ROZIER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I appear under this paragraph 181 in behalf of the lead producers of southeastern Missouri. That industry is at least the second largest natural resource within the State of Missouri. Now this committee, I see, is undertaking to get at some of the facts of the lead-mining business.

The CHAIRMAN. We would like to get at all of them.

Mr. ROZIER. I will try to give all of them within my power. We will start out with this proposition: That the entire production of the world in lead in metric tons is 950,000 metric tons.

The CHAIRMAN. Can you not reduce that to United States?

Mr. ROZIER. I can do it roughly. That would amount to 1,045,000 short tons. The production of the United States in 1907-and this production that I refer to is of 1907-was a little over 350,000, perhaps 356,000, short tons, some of the statistics differing a little as to the amounts.

Now, southeast Missouri in 1907 produced 108,500 tons. In other words, the United States produced 32 per cent of the entire production of the world in the past year; and that is substantially the percentage produced by the United States in the ten previous years. Southeast Missouri produced 30 per cent of the production of the United States. So I feel that the people of my section of the State are entitled to at least reasonable consideration of their interests in this matter.

To begin with, the ore in southeast Missouri is solely a lead proposition. We have no by-products in the manufacture and mining of lead. It is simply lead and nothing else. The lead in that section is found originally in the form of galena, near the surface. That has existed in perhaps five or six of the counties adjoining St. Francois County, which is now the center of the lead-mining district in southeast Missouri. But these surface minings have always amounted to only a very small portion, and during the last few years surface mining in galena ore has not exceeded 4,000 or 5,000 tons. Substantially the product of my section of the State is what is called disseminated lead ore. It is not found on the surface, but is found invariably in deep mining. The shafts average from 325 to 575 feet.

To start with, that disseminated ore is found associated with lime. rock, and the percentage has uniformly been from 4 to 10 per cent of lead product out of that disseminated rock. I may say, taking the general average of the district for many years, that not exceeding 5 per cent of metallic contents have ever been mined and smelted from the ore that was handled. In other words, we start out with this proposition, that for every ton of ore that is mined from 300 to 575 feet in the bowels of the earth we have extracted about 100 pounds of lead.

I beg to call the chairman's attention particularly, because I am afraid that he is laboring under some misunderstanding as to the duty upon lead and lead ore, to this fact. I appear here on behalf of lead ore and pig lead. The duty, as provided by the Dingley bill, is not $30 a ton on lead ore. It is 14 cents a pound upon the lead contents in the ore. Now, Mr. Chairman

The CHAIRMAN. I agree with you on that.

Mr. ROZIER. But not in the figures that you gave.

The CHAIRMAN. I said $30 a ton on the lead in the ore.

Mr. ROZIER. You had a figure here of $69 duty on a ton of oreThe CHAIRMAN. There is no mistake about what the duties are. Mr. ROZIER. In the ore we handle (our 5 per cent ore), if we are meeting competition from Mexico, it would mean that the Mexican ore would pay $1.50 duty-not $30. The ore we produce would simply be protected by $1.50 a ton.

Now, let us consider for a moment this matter of ore that is disseminated. It must be first mined by expensive shafts. Most of the mines there are accompanied by large amounts of water, requiring the installation of quite expensive pumping machinery. In some cases 6,000 gallons a minute are required to be pumped out of one shaft in order to keep the mine unwatered.

The ore is first mined and broken out of a drift, and thereafter hauled by approved machinery to a hoisting apparatus. It is hoisted, and there put into a concentrating mill built upon the grounds. The ore first passes through crushers, where it is crushed or broken. It thereafter passes into steel rolls, where it is broken up into smaller particles. Following that it passes over jigs and over tables, and with the aid of water, by the process of gravity, the lead contents are separated from the lime rock. Following that process this concentrate must be either calcined or roasted by a separate process. That concentrating process makes the ore about 40 per cent of metallic contents. The calcining or roasting of it makes about a 60 per cent mass. Then this must be smelted by either the reverberatory or some form of openhearth furnace. The committee will see that with the number of processes I have indicated, and with the table of wages paid in St. Francois County and the adjoining counties, the labor cost of wages paid by the United States, as compared with the labor cost in Mexico, would more than equal a difference of $1.50 against the United States.

I anticipate that some one of you gentlemen is going to ask me for precise figures as to the cost of mining of a ton of ore. That is a complicated problem. I will, in a general way, indicate the character of mining in my section. The mining done there can not be done on a cheap scale. It is an expensive district. It requires the investment in every case of not less than $1,000,000 and up to $3,000,000, $4,000,000, or $5,000,000 to operate a mine with this low-grade ore. To start with, the person who is intending to operate a mine there must have a large body of land, because the ore is found somewhat in blanket form, and it does not take long to exhaust an acre of ground. Therefore the intending miner must have a sufficient body of land to warrant the building of expensive machinery. In the next place, the shaft must be of sufficient size, and must be equipped with all the best forms of energy that can be applied in order to economically handle it. The mines are worked with compressed-air drills. The drifts are equipped with railways, with cars pulled by compressedair locomotives. The hoisting shafts are all equipped with electricity. The concentrating mills that I speak of have a large capacity, and the history of the district is that no plant has succeeded that has not been able to treat at least 1,000 tons of ore every twenty-four hours.

Now, gentlemen of the committee, I think that I have fairly indicated to you the general average of the mining in my section of the State as to the physical characteristics there, and the necessity of large outlays of money and large outlay for prospecting. I had almost omitted the matter of prospecting. Of course the ore is found not less than 300 feet under the ground. The district will not permit the hunting of that ore by drifts. The method of locating the ore is with diamond drills from the surface, so that each mine owner has to continually keep at work a corps of men using diamond drills, prospecting the ground ahead of him.

In a general way I will speak of the cost of labor in the district. The cost of labor in our district has been a progressive price. We have found that with each year the price of labor to the mine owners has increased. I have a table which I will file with the committee, and I am not going to worry this committee now by going at too great length into a discussion of the figures bearing upon this matter. But I have a table, beginning in 1870, which gives the price paid to the workmen in these mines. It does not only do that, but it shows the production of the United States in short tons. It shows the consumption in short tons, the New York price, the London price, and, as I said, the wages of the two classes of miners used there from 1870 down to 1907. Incidentally, it also shows the change of duties during the varying times.

Now, addressing myself to just one proposition here, I indicate that, following the adoption of the Wilson Act, August 27, 1894, the price paid labor in our district for drillers was $1.25, which was the average price in the years 1895 and 1896; and the back hands were paid from 90 cents to $1 for a day of ten hours. That price gradually advanced until in 1907 the drill men were paid $2.75 and the back hands $1.95 not for a ten-hour day, but for an eight-hour day, showing there a raise in wages of approximately 100 per cent-a little more than 100 per cent in the case of the back hands and almost 100 per cent in the case of the drillers. That is one of the conditions we meet there. So it shows that our district is not in condition to have an industry which has been built up at so large an outlay of capital and in the development of which so much time has been spent, wiped off without any consideration for the wants or wishes of our people. Owing to the lateness of the hour I will relieve you of the trouble of hearing all of the general remarks I had intended to make, but there are one or two matters that have come before the committee to-night as to which I would like to correct an impression that seems to have arisen; that is as to the importations and the exportations of lead from the United States. I think Mr. Payne read some figures in which the statement was made that the exports of the United States were some 80,000 tons. We have a provision of the law by which the smelters of

Mr. BONYNGE. Eighty million tons.

Mr. ROZIER. No; I think he said 80,000 tons.

Mr. DALZELL. These are the figures that are given out by the Treasury Department.

Mr. ROZIER. I am not disputing that those figures were given. The CHAIRMAN. These are the official figures.

Mr. ROZIER. But what I wish to say is that under the provisions of the Dingley Act those smelters of the West who were interested in getting wet ores for smelting purposes were permitted to import Mexican ore and to reexport that ore to the extent of 90 per cent, giving bond in the meantime that they would so reexport. As a matter of fact, of the domestic lead produced in the United States in 1907 there was only 55 tons exported. I think an examination of the figures will demonstrate that.

The CHAIRMAN. I remember that provision of the law very well. Mr. ROZIER. But the exporting

The CHAIRMAN. It refers to ore smelted in bond.

Mr. ROZIER. But the export consisted almost entirely of the ore that was imported in bond for smelting purposes and reexported; so that of the domestic lead only 55 tons were exported, and in the two or three previous years not exceeding 100 tons.

The CHAIRMAN. They do not pay duty on that when it is in bond at all, so that that does not enter at all into this report of lead that pays a duty.

Mr. ROZIER. No; but the statistics show that in the smelting of that ore they are able to save 97 per cent of its lead contents and retain for their own benefit, free of duty, about 7 per cent of the importation; so that in reality their importation of lead-bearing ores has permitted them to retain something like 11,000 to 12,000 tons in the United States of foreign ore, upon which no duty has been paid. So I say that that is a point that emphasizes that the United States is not an exporter of lead, nor, in reality, is it a very large importer of lead. Up to the year 1907 the United States consumed all of its production, and in the year 1907 there was a shortage of consumption of about 50,000 tons; and that is represented by the stock on hand at the end of 1907-50,000 tons, stock on hand.

Now, I want to say just some few words about southeast Missouri and this lead business. I desire to call the attention of this committee to St. Francois County especially. That is substantially the center of the lead industry in southeast Missouri, because it produces 92 per cent of the lead that is produced in southeast Missouri. It is produced substantially in a district about 18 miles long by a mile and a half wide, all being in that district. If the committee is interested in the names of the lead companies, I can give the names. We have lead companies having in excess of $20,000,000 capital. We have five or six what may be called cities, built up as a result of the establishment and operation of these companies. We have the city of Bonne Terre, with a population of 8,000; Flat River, with a population of 6,000; Elvins, with a population of about 3,000 ; Desloge, with a population of 3,000; Doe Run, with a population of 2,500; Leadwood, with a population of 3,000 people: Esther, with a population of about 1,200; and St. Francois, immediately joining, with about 1,500 people.

I say to this committee that those six or seven places that I have just named are absolutely dependent upon this lead industry, and to strike down the lead industry would mean that every one of these places would have to be abandoned for all purposes, because the land on which these mines are located is hardly worth cultivating for agricultural purposes. There they are employing about 6,500 miners, receiving, as I have indicated, wages ranging from $2.25 for ordinary miners to about $1.70 for the laborers.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you state that in your brief?

Mr. ROZIER. I may say that I have, in part. This was something I was most anxious to present.

The CHAIRMAN. I only suggest that because there is another gentleman here who wants to be heard to-night, who claims to be suffering from illness; and I thought of requesting him to come here to a future hearing, as I should be glad if he would consent to do so. If he can do that, we can go on and hear you out. Is Mr. Lissberger here?

Mr. LISSBERGER. Will you have a hearing to-morrow, Mr. Payne?