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Turning next to the question as to the amount of coal-tar dyes imported into the United States and the amount manufactured here, the American manufacturers have not the facilities to supply the American market with these dyes.

Furthermore, the five American manufacturers have not manufactured dyes successfully even with a 35 per cent. duty.

As can be ascertained from Professor Chandler, the American manufacturer can not obtain the material necessary to produce dyes made from coal-tar such as can be imported, owing to the difference in the manufacture of gas in this country as compared with the foreign manufacture of gas, independent of the fact that American anthracite coal is not as well suited as the English coal to make a coal-tar with the necessary quantity of hydro-carbon.

So far as the suggestion as to the number of petitioners to your honorable committee for a correction in the tariff as to dyes, it is respectfully suggested that a large number of the manufacturers who are particularly interested in getting these dyes cheap, and who will say that they believe they can get them cheaper if the duty is reduced, are already on petitions before your honorable body asking most emphatically for protection, and they feel as though if they should come before you and single out even an item that they claim does not require protection, and that would benefit them if you did reduce the duty, you would consider it inconsistent and not give their signature any value.

At the same time there are many that look at the question as though it was a conceded one that there must be a revision of our tariff, and if there is to be a rovision, then they respectfully suggest that dye-stuffs, which they use practically, we might say, in the light of a raw material, should be reduced in the proporton that other things are at least.

Before closing these suggestions it is most respectfully suggested that your honorable committee consider why the manufacturers of these dyes should have urged upon the honorable Committee on Ways and Means of the House to have placed an article seven-eighths manufactured upon the free list any more than the whole eight-eighths should be put upon the free list.

In other words, what argument can be offered sanctioning the phraseology of lines 87 to 91 inclusive, of section 1, if dye-stuffs, which are manufactured to such a limited degree in the United States, should not be placed in the same list as these other products of coal-tar which have gone through more or less processes in the course of manufacture.

Without wishing to specify by name any person, firm, or corporation, we have to say that we know of an effort that was made by an American manufacturer to combine with a foreign manufacturer to accomplish the very result we challenge this phraseology is inserted in the bill to accomplish.

The domestic manufacturer to-day only sells his article at about 5 per cent. below the price it can be imported for with a duty of 35 per cent, on it; so that by a reduction of 15 or 20 per cent. the American people will receive the benefit of 10 or 15 per cent. at least; and it can not be said that the 35 per cent. duty is any encouragement to industry when the manufacturers of dye-stuffs have decreased instead of increased, and according to their own statements and reports are losing money rather than making money, and are compelled to resort to a device such as this proposed clause in the Mills bill to give them one year's business, and let them out at the expense of the public. Respectfully,

JULY, 1888.

EDWARD S. HATCH,

55 Liberty street, New York City.

IN RE ALIZARINE.

To Hon. Nelson W. Aldrich, United States Senate, Washington, D. C.:

DEAR SIR: As a supplement to my formal appearance before the subcommittee appointed by the Finance Committee of the Senate to consider the subject of a tariff or a revenue bill, I would submit the following statement of facts why your honorable committee should place on the free list

"Alizarine, natural or artificial, or other dyes or colors produced from anthracine." Alizarine colors, natural and artificial, have been upon the free list for some time past, and are on the free list under the act of 1883.

The manufacturers and consumers of the dyes or colors known as alizarine colors recognize eight colors, namely: black, pink, chocolate, purple, red, orange, brown, blue.

Under the decision of the honorable Secretary of the Treasury, the custom-house only recognizes the alizarines for the first five of the foregoing eight colors as alizarine colors or dyes.

Under the term of natural alizarine is understood the different preparations of the coloring matter of madder, and these preparations are also known as madder extracts.

Of these extracts of madder, known as natural alizarine, there were those for purple, red, pink, chocolate, and possibly for other colors.

Madder is the root of a plant which is very widely distributed from south Europe to east Asia. This root is cured and then subjected to various chemical processes, from which result the several extracts of madder, or natural alizarine colors.

Of late years there has been little use of the madder plant, owing to the fact that these dyes are manufactured artificially from anthracine, at a cost so much less than that manufactured from the plant that, practically, natural alizarine has fallen-into disuse, particularly in this country.

Artificial alizarine is made in the following manner, described in a phraseology relieved of as many technical expressions as possible.

Anthracine, which is obtained from the coal-tar refuse of the gas works and is treated with bichromate of potash and an acid, such as sulphuric or acetic acid, and thereby is transformed into anthrachinon. Then they take anthrachinon and treat that again with sulphuric acid, which will produce sulpho acid of anthrachinon. This product treated with caustic soda, or potash at a high temperature, produces alizarine.

By varying the proportions of acid and caustic soda or potash, and by using va rious temperatures, the alizarine for red, pink, purple, chocolate, or black are obtained.

Taking the proportion that produces the alizarine for purple, submitted to the action of nitrous acid vapors, will result in a production of alizarine for orange.

Taking this alizarine for orange, treated with glycerine and sulphuric acid, will result in the production of alizarine for blue and alizarine for brown.

These alizarine colors are used by the calico printers for the production of fast colors, and there is nos ubstitute therefor; and it is also used by many other classes of manufacturers.

The only substitute for these three objectionable colors, using the expression objec tionable with reference to the decision of the Treasury Department in construing the tariff act of 1883, are as follows:

Persian berries, which is a dye used for the color orange, indigo for blue, and cutch for brown, are, in the act of 1833 and the proposed tariff bill of 1888 on the free list, and none of these are produced in this country.

There can be no bona fide opposition to placing alizarine, in all its colors or dyes, so termed, upon the free list, for the reason that none have ever been manufactured in any portion of the United States by any manufacturer, and it may safely be said that, regardless of what this Congress may do in this respect, there never will be any alizarine manufactured in the United States.

The reason why there will be none is that we have no facilities for manufacturing alizarine, and according to the strongest opponent to this measure, as his statement has been reported to us, it would cost him $800,000 to alter his present facilities for manufacturing dyes to enable him to make these anthracine colors, and it is known that it would be impossible to succeed in such an enterprise, and this statement can be substantiated by an examination of Professor Chandler scientifically, or in a crossexamination of the gentleman himself, if he should assert any intention to manufact ure these dyes.

Whether there might be some dyes manufactured to be used in place of alizarine dyes or colors is too indefinite a statement for us to meet with any facts, but at the present time nothing of that character has been done.

It is believed that the opposition to this alizarine amendment is only intended for the purpose of compelling those interested in having coal-tar dyes reduced to withdraw their opposition to the present tariff as a compromise to the withdrawal of the opposition to the admission of coal-tar dyes generally.

Trusting that your honorable committee will see that a clause is put into the bill to be offered to the Senate as an amendment, a substitute to the bill that may pass the House of Representatives at this Congress, that will protect all of the alizarine dyes or colors against being misunderstood in its phraseology, and so as to benefit the greatest number of citizens of the United States,

I remain, most respectfully, yours,

EDWARD S. HATCH,

53 Liberty Street, New York City.

CEMENT.

TUESDAY July 17, 1888.

STATEMENT OF ERNEST ACKERMAN,

General sales agent of the Lawrence Cement Company, New York.

Mr. ACKERMAN. First, I wish to call attention to page 9 of the pamphlet I herewith submit, and specially to the table appearing on that page showing the importations of foreign cement.

Senator ALDRICH. How many pounds of cement in a barrel?

can.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Four hundred of foreign cement, and 320 of AmeriThe difference in cost to equalize the manufacture between here and Germany would be 13 cents per 100 pounds. Germany is our principal competitor, and we pay seven times the amount of wages that they do in Germany.

Prof. Henry Reid, in his work entitled "Natural and Artificial Concrete," on page 305, says that the Star Portland Cement factory at Stettin, in Pomerania, is a model one. In 1878 their annual product was 240,000 casks, equivalent in quantity to 300,000 barrels of American Rosendale cement.

If you turn to volume 1 of the Consular Reports entitled "Labor in Europe," on page 512 we will find that the average wages paid in a Portland cement manufactory in Stettin, and it is presumably this one, was $3.57 per week of sixty hours, equal to 59 cents per day of ten hours. Senator ALDRICH. The duty collected at the present time is 20.6 cents per barrel.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Yes.

Senator ALDRICH. We propose to give you 24, and you say that is not enough.

Mr. ACKERMAN. No, sir; that will not equalize the difference in cost of manufacture between here and abroad.

Senator ALDRICH. How much do you ask?

Mr. ACKERMAN. We ask 13 cents a hundred-weight.

Senator ALDRICH. That is utterly impossible. We can not give it. Mr. ACKERMAN. That would merely equalize the difference.

Senator ALDRICH. That makes 60 per cent. That trebles the duty on cement. We can not do that.

Mr. ACKERMAN. The importations have increased 64 per cent., and we have every facility in this country for making cement. They are increasing importations at such a rate that they are driving us out of the business.

Senator ALDRICH. What is the consumption of cement?

Mr. ACKERMAN. Five million barrels, and we have a sufficient mill capacity to supply the whole of it, for many of our mills are now idle. Senator ALDRICH. There has not been very much change in the importation. What is the price of cement?

Mr. ACKERMAN. American cement?

Senator HISCOCK. No; foreign cement.

Mr. ACKERMAN. The invoiced value is $1.03 a barrel on the other side.

Senator ALDRICH. How much for American cement?

Mr. ACKERMAN. One dollar and eighty-five cents on some cement of this country.

Senator HISCOCK. You give the invoice price on the other side. What can they lay it down for in New York?

Mr. ACKERMAN. Those are barrels of 400 pounds. Those can be put in New York at $2 a barrel, and freight and duties are 60 cents a barrel at the present time.

Senator HISCOCK. Do you say foreign cement can be put down in New York at $4 a barrel?

Mr. ACKERMAN. No, sir; $2 to $2.25.

Senator HISCOCK. That includes the freight?

Mr. ACKERMAN. Yes.

Senator HISCOCK. That makes 55 cents a hundred-weight at $2.25 a barrel?

Mr. ACKERMAN. Yes, 55 cents a hundred-weight.

Senator HISCOCK. Twenty per cent. of that would be in specific rates about how much?

Mr. ACKERMAN. Twenty per cent. on 55 cents?

Senator HISCOCK. Yes.

Mr. ACKERMAN. It would be 11 cents per 100 pounds.

Mr. DURFEE. Forty-four cents a barrel on the basis of $2.20 for 400 pounds.

Senator ALDRICH. Would you rather have the present law than 6 cents a hundred pounds?

Mr. ACKERMAN. No, sir; 6 cents a hundred pounds would be better than the present law, because the duty is not computed upon the barrel, which it was up to 1885. If the duty was collected upon the barrel aj present, the duty would be 30 cents a barrel, because the value abroad is $1.50 a barrel, and they invoice the barrel high and compute the duty upon the bulk value of the cement at the place of manufacture, and thus it makes it only 20.6 cents a barrel.

Senator ALDRICH. We propose to restore the duty on the barrels. Let us take it on lime.

Mr. ACKERMAN. I do not know much about lime. We only have one lime-works in Ulster County, N. Y., and that makes ground lime, different from the lime that comes from Rockland, Me. But the St. John's lime from New Brunswick has caused us to shut up our works in Ulster County. This is a very important industry in New York. There are 3,500 men employed in Ulster County alone, and the condition of the country there is such that it is depending very largely upon this cement business. In the Rosendale region, that depends almost entirely upon the cement business for its livelihood.

Senator ALDRICH. If the duty was computed on the barrel 20 per cent. would be better for you.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Yes, it would be, because then it would give us 30 cents a barrel as against 24 cents a barrel.

Senator ALDRICH. I guess 6 cents a hundred pounds is not enough. Mr. TINGLE. That was based on the foreign value at the time that was made up, a few years ago.

Senator ALDRICH. That was $1.10 a barrel.

Mr. ACKERMAN. I want to state that the Secretary of the Treasury decided on a case from Portland, Oregon, that the barrel did not con

stitute any part of the cement, and so they computed the duty merely upon the bulk value of the cement.

I also want to tell the committee how we have been driven out of many markets. We have sent as many as 60,000 to 75,000 barrels a year to San Francisco. To-day we are not sending a barrel. The freights are less to San Francisco from England than we can afford to ship for from New York. We are being driven out of Galveston and New Orleans also, and our lines are being drawn tighter and tighter every day. We were commencing to start a large mill at Seigfreid's Bridge for the manufacture of Portland cement. We think we can there make better Portland cement to day, decidedly, than can be made abroad, but there is no inducement to go ahead if there is only 6 cents a pound to be placed upon the articles.

Senator ALDRICH. Suppose we should give you 8 cents a hundredweight; how would that answer?

Mr. ÁCKERMAN. Thirteen cents a hundred-weight merely equalizes the difference in cost of production.

Senator HISCOCK. Do you know what the relation is between lime and cement?

Mr. ACKERMAN. Cement is used where lime can not be used, and cement is used for under-water work.

Senator HISCOCK. I mean the price of one affecting the price of the other.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Cement and lime are about the same; that is, "Rosendale cement and Rockland lime.

Senator HISCOCK. I mean the uses to which they can be put, so that the value of one would affect the value of the other.

Mr. ACKERMAN. I do not think that would be the case.

Senator HISCOCK. There is nothing of that kind?

Mr. ACKERMAN. No, sir. Cement is being used now where lime was used formerly, on account of making a better building, doing better work.

The CHAIRMAN. I see in your pamplet you speak of the Silesian cement. What are their methods of transportation from Silesia ? Mr. ACKERMAN. By sail vessels to America.

The CHAIRMAN. Do they have no land transportation?
Mr. ACKERMAN. Vessels come direct from Stettin.

Stettin is on the Oder, and is in Pomerania. Silesia, where they pay 24 cents, is somewhat inland.

The CHAIRMAN. Where was this place you intended to establish a new factory?

Mr. ACKERMAN. At Seigfried's Bridge, near Allentown, about 200 miles from Washington.

The CHAIRMAN. It would require rail transportation from there? Mr. ACKERMAN. Yes. It was reported in the Herald of June 17 that a vessel sailed from the other side containing 5,500 barrels of Portland cement, to go directly through the lakes to Chicago. They can put cement in Chicago directly from Germany at less than we can send it there from Cumberland, Md.

The CHAIRMAN. Is your cement equal to the Portland cement?

Mr. ACKERMAN. Yes. It will do the same kind of work exactly. We are making Portland cement and propose to do it at Seigfried's Bridge. Over 100,000 barrels of our cement has been used in Washington alone on all the principal buildings, and 20,000 barrels of our brand has been used in the Capitol here.

The CHAIRMAN. Where do you get the cement from?

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