any quantity during World War I, and there was some drop-off in popularity after the war, and then it picked up again. And as to the exact point of whether the American watch companies picked up their production of that watch as fast as the importers did, I don't know. But they certainly were not far behind.

Senator MILLIKIN. Do you make a wrist watch?

Mr. SHENNAN. Oh, yes. Whoever said that was referring to probably the period between 1920 and 1924, which is some 24 to 28 years ago.

Senator LUCAS. The dollar Ingersoll watch was very popular in World War I.

Mr. SHENNAN. Yes, sir, and where are the Ingersoll watches now? I think they have been forced out of the market; the price is $2.50 now, instead of a dollar.

Senator MILLIKIN. What has happened to the Ingersoll? What is the next equivalent watch to the old Ingersoll?

Mr. SHENNAN. There are some equivalent watches on the market at something like a 212- to 3-dollar price. The people at Ingersoll have said that they expected to import watches, that they can't make them in competition.

Senator LUCAS. Does it take a fellow 3, 4, or 5 years to know how to make an Ingersoll?

Mr. SHENNAN. Yes, sir. There is considerable skill involved in making those watches.

Senator LUCAS. I do not see how they could sell them for a dollar. Mr. SHENNAN. It takes a lot of good engineering and technical skill to make those watches. I don't think it takes quite as high a skill in assembling the watch, but the skill is in the tooling and the design. And those plants are very, very highly mechanized and well organized. Senator MILLIKIN. Do you confirm that there are certain types of Swiss machinery that would be good for our domestic producing industry if we could get them, and that Switzerland embargoes them? Mr. SHENNAN. Well, I agree that to all practical purposes they embargo them, because the agreement under which they are willing to lease them is just something that the average American businessman can't see his way clear to sign; although Waltham did sign such an agreement.

Now, since we knew we were not going to be able to get them, we have designed and built, and had built for us here, the machinery that we need. If we had been able to get them from Switzerland, we could have saved time, principally. After all, we pretty well wore out some of our machines during the war, and could not stop and build new machines to keep up the normal depreciation replacement. So it would have been very advantageous for us to be able to go over there where the machines were available and buy them and get going faster.

We could not do that, so we had to take the time to start out from scratch and get them built.

I don't think that there is a machine that they can build that we can't build. But there are a great many more people in Switzerland who devote their entire time and thought and energy to developing special machinery for these purposes; whereas in this country there are only the American companies that are interested and can afford to

devote it. So they have a great many more people working on it, and the Swiss are good engineers, and very clever machine builders, and they have built fine machinery.

I don't think it is any better than the American machinery. It usually costs less. You can usually get it in stock, whereas we have to build it. However, we have built our own machines. We felt in all fairness to the effort of this industry in the war for the United Nations we ought to get some help from Switzerland when we needed it, and they apparently didn't agree.

The CHAIRMAN. Any questions, Senator Byrd?

Senator BYRD. How many watches does Switzerland make a year? Mr. SHENNAN. In the categories that we are discussing, I am going to have to guess, but it must be between 20 and 30 million.

Senator BYRD. How many does this country make?

Mr. SHENNAN. We made a little over 2,000,000, from 2 to 211⁄2 million, in the same general classification, quality watches.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Shennan.

Mr. SHENNAN. Thank you very much for your courtesy and attention.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Stanley Ruttenberg, I understand, is delayed. Mrs. Margaret F. Stone?

Mrs. Stone, will you come forward, please?

You may be seated and give your name and the organization which you represent to the reporter.

STATEMENT OF MARGARET F. STONE, CHAIRMAN OF LEGISLATION, NATIONAL WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mrs. STONE. My name is Mrs. Margaret F. Stone, and I am the chairman of legislation of the National Women's Trade Union League. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the National Women's Trade Union League urges adoption of H. R. 1211, which would repeal the Trade Agreements Extension Act of 1948, and extend the original Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act for a period of 3 years from last June 12.

The trade-agreements program provides the basic machinery for achieving increased world trade, and we base our support of the program on two broad reasons:

(1) We believe that a free flow of international trade-both exports and imports makes for a higher standard of living in our own country; and

(2) We believe that economic recovery and peace itself are closely connected with increased world trade.

Our organization has actively supported the trade-agreements program since January 1938, and our members, therefore, have had a chance to watch its administration over a period of 11 years. A large part of our membership is composed of women working in industry, and in the early years of the program some members were greatly concerned over individual items in the agreements.

Senator MILLIKIN. May I ask: How many members have you in your organization?

Mrs. STONE. It is hard to say, because it is a federation of trade unions with women members, and the membership of the trade unions perhaps overlap some. We have about a million members.

Senator MILLIKIN. Thank you very much.

Mrs. STONE. In our local league there are about 25,000 members. We have local leagues, as well as our federated union, and then we have individual members who are in sympathy with our objectives to better working conditions for women.

In the early years of the program, as I say, some members were greatly concerned over individual items in the agreements. For example, we have quite a few boot and shoe makers and also glove workers, and these women were afraid that cheap shoes and gloves from abroad would flood American markets, and they would lose their jobs. Our national office delved into the available facts and figures at that time, and were able to show our members that in spite of a few individual hardship cases-which there were the over-all picture on employment showed a substantial rise in the industries involved in producing items covered in the various trade agreements. Many figures to substantiate this fact were given by the then Commissioner of Labor Statistics, Dr. Isador Lubin, in his testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee at the 1940 hearings on extension of the act. At the same hearing, I, myself, in testifying for the National Women's Trade Union League, gave figures to show that wages in the export industries are, in general, much higher than in the so-called protected industries.

In other words, the old saying that higher tariffs mean higher wages, doesn't hold true.

The tables of current labor statistics published in the Monthly Labor Review continue to corroborate this point from month to month. In looking at the figures for September 1948, I found that the estimated average hourly wage in all manufacturing industriesand that is both export and protected industries-was $1.362, and was higher than the hourly wage in most of the protected industries listed. It is the efficiency of an industry, in large measure, that determines wages, and that makes it possible for an industry to compete successfully with low-wage rates in foreign countries.

Besides these factors of employment and wages, with which our members are especially concerned, all women are affected by tariffs as consumers. The league believes that the interest of consumers, for the first time in the history of tariff making, is protected by the procedure set up under the original Trade Agreements Act. This procedure, which calls for participation by the Departments of State, Commerce, Agriculture, Labor, Treasury, National Defense, and the Tariff Commission at all stages in the preparation of a trade agreement, is sound and has proved to be a thoroughly democratic way of protecting the many conflicting interests of the American public.

On the international side, the trade-agreements program is an important link in the whole economic recovery program. The United States, as you gentlemen know, requires that the European countries participating in the economic cooperation program lower trade barriers among themselves; we, obviously, should require of others only what we are willing to do ourselves, and should lead the way in this respect.

To sum up: The members of our organization are for the trade-agreements program in its original form-as workers, as consumers, and, finally, as humanitarians who want to see every pillar in the foundation of world peace made as strong as possible; and we know that an expanding world economy, made possible by the establishment of conditions essential to the rehabilitation of trade and production throughout the world, is one of the great pillars of peace. In the final analysis, we are for it as citizens interested in the future welfare, safety, and happiness of the American people. We, therefore, urge favorable action on H. R. 1211.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much for your statement.
Are there any questions?

Mrs. STONE. Mr. Chairman, may I also file a statement in behalf of the National Council of Jewish Women? Their headquarters are in New York, and they asked me if I would file a statement for them when I appeared before this committee.

May that be included in the record?

The CHAIRMAN. It will go into the record. (The statement referred to is as follows:)

STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN IN SUPPORT OF H. R. 1211, THE TRADE AGREEMENTS EXTENSION ACT OF 1949 for PresentATION TO THE SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE, FEBRUARY 22, 1949

The National Council of Jewish Women supported the Trade Agreements Act when it was originally presented to Congress by former Secretary of State Cordell Hull and when it was passed by Congress in extended form in 1945. The need for this program continues as great as ever and it must not be watered down by limitations of 1 year on its duration or by restrictions on the President's power to lower tariffs such as were adopted by the Eightieth Congress.

The benefits to this country of the reciprocal trade program are proven by the large increase in trade with treaty countries. From 1934 to 1939, United States trade with countries which had signed tariff agreements rose 63 percent, as against a 32 percent rise with nontreaty countries.

The Trade Agreements Act is a close ally of the International Trade Organization. From the start, the United States has been a prime mover in the development of the International Trade Organization. The United States has supported the International Trade Organization in the belief that the freeing of world trade through the reduction of barriers which are unnecessarily high and which discriminate among countries, will aid greatly in producing a stable world economy. Under the reciprocal trade program, the United States has concluded a large number of agreements to reduce tariffs, eliminate preferences, and in many other ways help the free flow of international trade. The United States cannot on the one hand support the International Trade Organization and on the other restrict the reciprocal trade program which should be a mainstay of the International Trade Organization program.

The countries of the world have made great strides in reconstructing their ruined economies. But the arduous work of reconstruction must continue for many years before the world's economy will be healthy. The European recovery program is helping greatly in this process. The improvement and expansion of world trade is a necessary concomitant of the European recovery program and is essential to recovery. The United States, through the Trade Agreements Act, can give tremendous impetus to the betterment of world trade while at the same time improving its own economy.

The National Council of Jewish Women urges the immediate adoption by the Senate of a bill extending the Trade Agreements Act to June 1951 and removing the restrictive provisions passed in 1948. The National Council of Jewish Women supports the extension of the Trade Agreements Act under its resolution on foreign trade:

"Whereas the United States requires an expanding world trade for the full utilization of its productive resources, which is necessary for both domestic and world economic progress; and

"Whereas the United States is in a position to give leadership toward the achievement of that objective: Therefore be it

"Resolved, That the National Council of Jewish Women support the progressive reduction of tariffs by the United States on a reciprocal basis; and be it further "Resolved, That the National Council of Jewish Women urge the United States Government to undertake international agreements designed to lower or remove trade barriers."

Senator MILLIKIN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the lady one question.

I think the essential difference between the bill which has been proposed, and the act as it now exists has to do with the establishment of a peril point by the Tariff Commission, which the President may or may not follow. What is the objection of your organization to that?

Mrs. STONE. It seems to us, sir, that to guess at a peril point is about all that the Commission could do. They could take various things into consideration, but it would be a prognostication. And in the present procedure, we have the safeguard of the escape clause, which we think is the reasonable way to protect it, after there have been actual signs of injury to an industry. I think after last November we sort of lost faith in prognostications.

We feel that the rates under the present law are very carefully gone into. I myself have attended some of the hearings on specific trade agreements, and have seen how the witnesses were heard. We feel that our interests, the interests of the public, are protected by the various groups that are in on the negotiations all through the making of an agreement.

Senator MILLIKIN. I am sure you will agree with me that if we do not have prosperous local industry we cannot have consumers who will consume.

Mrs. STONE. I agree with you, sir. But I also believe that the overall picture has been in favor of the American consumer; that the American consumer has benefited in general. I think we sometimes lose sight of the fact too that although we do not want to see any individual industry suffer, and I thoroughly approve of the escape clause in the agreements, sometimes it is made to appear that the so-called protected industries are a much larger part of the whole manufacturing industries than they really are.

Senator MILLIKIN. I think the statistics show that our exports amount to about 10 percent of our entire economy.

Mrs. STONE. Yes; I have seen such estimates.

Senator MILLIKIN. Ten or twelve percent. So of course, the local market and the local production for that market is by all odds the larger part of the business. I was just simply wondering what the attitude of the ladies is as to how we can serve the consuming interests if we do not serve the producing interests, and see that they are safeguarded.

Mrs. STONE. It seems to me that before the trade agreements program, the producers were the only ones considered. It was what they wanted in the way of tariffs. And we feel that in enlarging world trade and expanding world trade, there is bound to be more employment, more money at home to spend, and a higher standard of living here. And may I say too, as to the various witnesses who have talked about competing with low wage scales in other countries, that