chusetts, Connecticut, Ohio, Rhode Island, Maryland, Kentucky, and California. Some years afterwards the subject came up before Congress. I did not come on myself, but we sent in petitions and had friends here that were looking after our interests. Circumstances did not permit our committee to come on at that time. There was an increase in the committee. I think Mr. Randall was then the chairman of the committee. There was an increase given to us, but when the committee made its report I believe it was stricken out. Previous to 1883 the amount of metal leaf imported

Senator ALLISON. You have given those figures in your petition. It is not necessary to repeat them.

Mr. BRICE. I suppose not, as you have the petition. The wages that we are receiving to-day are at the rate of $11 per week. That is the union rate of wages and is exactly what we received previous to the Some few years previous to that it was a little higher. During the war of course the wages advanced a little. We did not dare to advance and keep up with many other industries, because we were afraid of importations interfering with us. After the war was over several years matters got depressed, everything became very dull and there was competition at home and we were obliged to come down still lower. Several years afterwards matters improved and there was quite a run of this gold-leaf. At that time the demand for the metal-leaf was not quite so great. We then got an advance and were in hopes we would be able to hold it. It was slightly over the present rate of wages. I suppose we enjoyed that advance about eighteen months and then the importations began coming in so rapidly and interfering with us that in order to keep the majority of our men employed at a fair rate of wages we were forced to come down. Then the metal-leaf was also on the increase and it has steadily increased, as you can see by our report, from 1880 until the present year. It has so materially interfered with goldleaf that it has, I was going to say completely, but not quite that, it has to a great extent replaced the gold-leaf.

Senator ALLISON. That is the Dutch-metal leaf.

Mr. BRICE. That is the Dutch-metal leaf.

Senator ALLISON. What is it used for?

Mr. BRICE. For decorating purposes. It is used for sign purposes, and they use it on books, albums, Bibles, pictures, and everything of that sort.

Senator ALLISON. It is used as a substitute for gold-leaf?

Mr. BRICE. Yes. They have a patent English varnish which they apply to it which gives it a beautiful luster after it is burnished, etc. Senator VOORHEES. It is comparatively cheap as regards gold-leaf, is it not?

Mr. BRICE. Yes, sir; it is, but after we get a generation educated up so as to understand it, its effect, etc., then we begin to do a little better on gold-leaf. In the mean time the present generation is using this metal-leaf and we are suffering.

Senator VOORHEES. What is the metal-leaf?

Mr. BRICE. The German-metal leaf, an imitation of gold-leaf. It is got up in the same style, only not all booked. It costs a little more to have it booked.

Senator VOORHEES. It is not as durable as gold-leaf?

Mr. BRICE. No, sir.

Senator ALLISON. Is it distinguishable from gold-leaf by the eye? Mr. BRICE. No, sir. I will show you some of the genuine gold. When they apply the Dutch-metal leaf to any picture-frame or any fine book

and put the English patent varnish on it it requires an expert to tell the difference between that and genuine gold. I will pass some specimens of gold around and you may see them. [Submits specimens of gold-leaf to the committee.] When you come to look through genuine gold-leaf you can almost read a newspaper through it, but you can not do that with the Dutch-metal leaf. You can not see through that. Those who are not experts in order to tell the difference between the two will use acids. A gold beater is not obliged to do that, because, in order to tell the difference between the two, he takes it in this way and looks through it [illustrating]. I have here some gold-leaf which you can see right through. It is twenty-three carats, and something over, fine. If you attempt, however, to look through any part of this pack of metal which I have here you will find it a very difficult matter. Senator ALLISON. What does the Dutch metal cost?

Mr. BRICE. About 90 cents a package of 500 leaves, I think.
Senator VOORHEES. Is it a product of Holland?

Mr. BRICE. It is manufactured in a number of places in Germany, Fürth, Nuremberg, etc. It was originally manufactured in Belgium. Senator ALLISON. What is the cost of a package of this composition? Mr. BRICE. I have named the retail rate of the importer and submit the bill to the committee.

Senator ALLISON. Does this bill refer to the package you have produced?

Mr. BRICE. Yes, sir.

Senator ALLISON. The cost of that was 95 cents.

Mr. BRICE. That is the cost here to day.

Senator ALLISON. With duty added?

Mr. BRICE. With duty added; the retail price to-day. There is the bill as we received it.

Senator ALLISON. How many leaves are probably in this package? Mr. BRICE. Five hundred leaves is what they guaranty in that package.

Senator ALLISON. A package of 500 leaves costs you 95 cents retail in New York.

Mr. BRICE. Yes, sir.

Senator HARRIS. Is that metal manufactured here at all?

Mr. BRICE. Not a particle of it.

Senator HISCOCK. What does the corresponding gold-leaf cost?

Mr. BRICE. The rate it was sold at to-day was $7 per pack of 500 leaves.

Senator VOORHEES. Then there is the difference between 95 cents and $7.

Mr. BRICE. Yes, sir.

Senator HISCOCK. What is this metal leaf?

Mr. BRICE. It is 75 per cent. copper and 25 per cent. spelter. The gold-leaf is within a carat of being pure fine gold.

Senator HISCOCK. For gilding purposes is one practically just as good as the other?

Mr. BRICE. You can gild with the Dutch-metal leaf and make it look very good and it will answer for a few months; but when the air gets at it and you handle it a little it will discolor. The gold-leaf with any kind of care will last for years. The house I am employed in used to supply people 200 packs a month in the book-binding trade, and to day they supply them with 35 to 50 packs a month, and the balance used is the Dutch-metal leaf. Many of the houses abroad are sending their books into the market here with this metal-leaf on them.

Senator ALLISON. That is, the ends and sides of the books?

Mr. BRICE. Yes, sir. Our manufacturers here, in order to compete with them, have to resort to the same means and to use this metal leaf. The consequence is that the houses we are employed in have been using the metal-leaf instead of the gold-leaf. Houses that used to use two and three hundred packs a month of gold-leaf have got down to between fifty and one hundred packs a month.

Senator ALLISON. Why are you called gold-beaters? Does that indicate the process?

Mr. BRICE. It indicates the process. We have several processes which we go through. The skins that we beat the gold out in are very tender, and it requires an amount of intelligence equal to that for any other art or business. Webster defines ours as an art.

Senator HARRIS. Your avocation is to convert the solid metal into the leaf?

Mr. BRICE. Yes, sir. Our employers buy the solid metal and put in an alloy of copper and silver, 22 grains to the ounce.

Senator ALLISON. To the ounce of gold?

Mr. BRICE. To the ounce of gold. Then they run it through steel rollers into a ribbon about three or four times the length of this room. Then it is weighed out to the men, fifty pennyweight to each man, who cut it up into pieces, making about 180 pieces. The first process is a new patent that has been gotten up. The pieces are about 3 inches square, or a little under, and we beat them out and lay them in batches, 25 or 50, as the case may be, and cut them in four quarters, making 4 times 180. The next process is the shoder. The shoder originally was a mold made from these skins taken from the intestines of a bullock-vulgarly speaking, the bum-gut-cleaned and fixed up in frames and cut in various sizes. After they have been pretty well worked out then we get them down by shodering. That is the second process. We take about 7 pennyweights off and reduce it all the time. The next is the mold. The mold takes a leaf pretty near as large as the sample I show the committee, each mold holding 900 skins. We fill the molds out of that shoder and start with 180 pieces, and we wind up with about 3,000 leaves, at least we put in 2,700 anyhow. We always have a surplus over, pretty near 3,000 leaves. When the last process is through you can read a newspaper through the leaf. Then we send it to the cutting-room, and the girls cut it up. The girls get 2 cents a book, 25 leaves in each book. They have a little cuttingwagon, as we call it. They cut the sheets 33 inches square. They get 50 cents a pack for cutting a pack of 20 books. In Germany they get 15 cents a pack.

Senator VOORHEES. Let me ask you a question on a practical point we want to arrive at. Whereabouts do you want help? Where do you want protection? Do you want protection against this cheap commodity, metal-leaf?

Mr. BRICE. Yes, sir; and we would like to have a little, also, on the gold-leaf, because the amount imported is so very large. We want to be able to make higher wages.

Senator VOORHEES. I can see how that may be, but is there any feasible or practicable way by which we can shut out the competition of the other stuff against you? It would take a duty that would be prohibitory, it seems to me.

Senator HISCOCK. Let me ask a question to supplement the question of Senator Voorhees. The moment you put a high duty on this Dutchmetal leaf then it is going to be manufactured here.

Mr. BRICE. Yes, sir; that is the fact.

Senator Hiscock. The moment you put a protective duty upon it as a matter of course you run right into it here. Then the gold-leaf has got to stand the comparison and test as a business matter against the metal-leaf.

Mr. BRICE. That is true.

Senator VOORHEES. You can not help it at all. It has got to be made here if it is not sent here from abroad.

Senator ALLISON. The present duty on Dutch metal is 10 per cent. ad valorem.

Mr. BRICE. Yes, sir; and on gold-leaf there is a specific duty of $1.50 for 500 leaves 33 inches square.

Senator ALLISON. What is the equivalent specific duty of 10 per cent. ad valorem on 500 leaves of Dutch metal? Ninety-five cents is the retail cost of 500 leaves. What is the cost of 500 leaves of that metal in Germany?

Mr. BRICE. The principal thing is the labor.

Senator ALLISON. Very well; but what is the cost? Of course, commercial sense, these are of a particular size? Mr. BRICE. Yes, sir.

in a

Senator ALLISON. Now what is the cost of 500 leaves of Dutch metal in Germany? The bill you have submitted shows that 500 leaves cost 95 cents here at retail. That is with the duty paid, I suppose.

Mr. BRICE. Yes, sir. Senator HARRIS. Transportation and manufacturer's profit also. Senator ALLISON. Transportation is not an important item. Senator HARRIS. I suppose it does not amount to very much, still it is an item.

but

Mr. BRICE. The cost would run between 40 and 50 cents, but it is a difficult matter for us to get out of the importer in conversation just what the cost is. That is where our principal trouble has been.

Senator ALLISON. But you can tell something about it. It would prob ably amount to 45 or 50 cents.

Mr. RADFORD. Yes, sir, or less; taking all the different classes that are imported. There is some sent in that they call the elephant leaf. I think that will retail for 50 cents a pack.

Senator VOORHEES. Have you formulated in your petition exactly what you want.

Mr. BRICE. Yes, sir.

Senator ALLISON. I would like to get from you as near as I can an estimate of the cost of 500 leaves of this Dutch metal at the place of manufacture.

Mr. RADFORD. The box here contains 5,000 leaves.

Senator ALLISON. Of Dutch metal?

Mr. RADFORD. Of Dutch metal. This metal leaf I purchased the day before we came here for $5-the whole package. They would not divide 100 leaves for us, and I was compelled to take it all. I paid $5 for the 5.000 leaves of Dutch metal.

Senator ALLISON. Where did you buy it?

Mr. RADFORD. In New York.

Senator ALLISON. Did you buy of a retailer?

Mr. RADFORD. Yes, sir; but I had been there in the morning and did not like to ask him for another invoice, because I thought he was eyeing me. We have reason to believe the importers are watching us. They have seen our proceedings, and we have reason to know they have their eyes on us.

Senator ALLISON. Can you not give us approximately the cost of that metal on the other side?

Mr. RADFORD. No; I can not. We do not know how to get at it. Senator ALLISON. How much of the cost of the Dutch-metal leaf is labor?

Mr. RADFORD. The intrinsic value of the metal is about 16 cents. Senator ALLISON. In 5,000 leaves?

Mr. RADFORD. Not more than that. The remainder would be the cost of the labor and the profit.

Mr. BRICE. A gentleman started in business in East New York eight years ago to manufacture this Dutch-metal leaf. He was paying his inen $9 per week. I have here a sworn statement from him. He was getting $1.25 a pack at that time. The importers came in competition with him and got him down to 75 cents. They did this in the course of a few months, and the result was that he had to go out of business. He states that. He does not state here, although we know it, that after he went out of the business they went back to the original rates, $1.25. We presume if we are wiped out of existence the experience will be the same with gold-leaf; that the importers will go back to the original rate, and make the consumer pay it as usual. The man who makes this affidavit swears to what I have stated with that one exception, but he admits that is the fact also.

Senator HARRIS. That is in respect to the Dutch-metal leaf, is it? Mr. BRICE. Yes, sir. He is now a silver-beater. He has turned his attention to silver. He would have had to reduce the pay of the men to about $5 a week to compete with the other business. It is true to day that through competition with the importers the rates are lower than they were eight years ago.

The affidavit referred to by Mr. Brice is as follows:

Statement of Charles Wiesekel, residing at 126 Pennsylvania avenue, Brooklyn, Long Island

N. Y.

NEW YORK, January 27, 1888.

I hereby certify that I started the manufacture of bronze or Dutch metal in leaf eight years ago.

I sold the leaf for $1.25 per pack of 500 leaves 38 square. The importers then sold for $1.20 and they continued to undersell me until I was compelled to sell as low as 75 cents per pack, and I was finally obliged to abandon the manufacture of bronze or Dutch metal in leaf entirely.

The wages I paid my men to beat the leaf was $9 per week, and the wages they pay for the manufacture of bronze or Dutch metal in leaf in Fürth, Bavaria, is 20 marks, or less than $5.10 to a first-class workman.

CHARLES WIESEKEL.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 27th day of January, A. D. 1888.

C. W. C. DUHER, Notary Public for Kings County, N. Y.

I think I gave you a statement that Mr. Mills asked from me. I had a little conversation with him. His committee answered our communication and stated at that time they were not prepared to give a hearing to any industry as yet. I have one of the statements here. I have also a statement given by a German on the cost of manufacturing a certain number of leaves in Germany and a statement by the president of the union of the cost of manufacturing the same number in America.