TARIFF HEARINGS 45 BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SIXTIETH CONGRESS. FIRST PRINT, No. 16. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1908. WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. Butl TARIFF HEARINGS. THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS, Wednesday, November 25, 1908. The committee this day met, Hon. Sereno E. Payne in the chair. The CHAIRMAN. We will hear two gentlemen on the zinc schedule first, and after that we will take up iron and steel. We will first hear Mr. S. Duffield Mitchell, of Carthage, Mo., representing the zinc ore producers of Missouri. STATEMENT OF MR. S. DUFFIELD MITCHELL, OF CARTHAGE, MO. Mr. UNDERWOOD. What paragraphs are you going to speak about? 514. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I will first speak of paragraph 514, which puts calamine on the free list. Calamine is an ore of zinc and has been on the free list, as I understand it, from the earliest history of tariff legislation. Calamine is a zinc ore and produces about 50 per cent of metallic zinc contents. Paragraph 181 is the lead schedule, which I do not propose to speak about so far as lead is concerned, but it seemed to us, inasmuch as lead and zinc in our district are closely associated and were mined from the same mine, that, properly speaking, the zinc ore should be put in with the lead ore in the new bill. I am here asking the committee to put 13 cents duty upon the metallic contents of zinc, the same duty that is on lead at the present time. Now, I propose to make my remarks very short. Calamine, as I say, was on the free list, and in the Dingley bill of 1897 it was retained there. The mere fact that zinc ores were not put on the dutiable list in the Dingley bill was probably due to the fact that no request was made by the zinc-mine operators at that time for a duty. The menace of foreign importations of ore at that time was not apparent. No ore was imported from Mexico until about the 1st of July, 1905. During the year 1905 the price of zinc ore in the Joplin district was high. It averaged about $47.40 a ton for that entire year for what we call 60 per cent ore; that is, ore in the Joplin district which contains 60 per cent of metallic contents. The smelters then began to import ore from Mexico, and for the last part of the year 1905 some 41,000 tons were imported. In 1906, 90,000 tons of ore were imported. In 1907, 109,000 tons were imported, and, so far as my information goes, this year up to the 1st of October about 50,000 tons have been imported, chiefly from Mexico. The Mexican ore is chiefly carbonate and runs about 40 per cent metallic contents, and |