polished plate silvered of the same sizes there was imported into the United States 66,728 feet of avalue of $84,138, or an average cost f. o. b. Liverpool, of $1.26 per square foot. Now, I find in examining the annual report of the chief of the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department for the year ending June 30, 1887, page 43, that the average value of the cast polished plate unsilvered above 24 by 60 imported for the year into the United States was 32.7 cents per square foot, and that the value of the cast polished plate silvered of the same sizes imported was $1.09.7 per square foot. In other words, the price of plate-glass unsilvered, such as is manufactured in this country, has been reduced from 97.9 cents per square foot to 32.7 cents per square foot, or 663 per cent., while the value of the silvered glass has only been reduced from $1.26 to $1.09.7 or 12.93 per cent. The secret of the whole matter is, the unsilvered is manufactured in the United States and comes into competition with the foreign. Silvered glass is simply a higher branch of the same art. Americans have not yet gotten to a position where they can fully supply the demand of unsilvered glass, and, of course, until they do there will be no incentive for them to branch out into the higher art. Foreigners have been practically without competition in this line, and the reduction they have made in these goods is trifling, and there will be no great reduction in these goods to Americans until American manufactures are established, when its cost will be reduced just as it is in the unsilvered. While this enormous reduction in price and consequent saving to consumers has been made by our competition in unsilvered plate these low prices have stimulated consumption and enlarged imports until the revenue collected by the Government has increased (notwithstanding home production) from $770,371.03 in 1874 to $1,245,304.95 in 1887; but the arbitrary prices demanded by the foreign monopoly on the silvered product has had the contrary effect and the consumption of silvered plate has apparently not increased a foot in all these years. In this connection I wish to call your attention to the following letter addressed by my father in his life-time to Hon. W. R. MORRISON, Chairman, Washingtom City, D. C.: NEW ALBANY, IND., February 14, 1884. MY DEAR SIR: Inclosed I have the honor of handing you a paper which will give you some facts in relation to the manufacture of plate-glass in this and other lands. Owing to the determined opposition of European manufacturers, every attempt to manufacture plate-glass in America has been a sad failure, resulting in financial ruin and disaster to the undertakers until I took hold of it at this place. After a fight of nearly ten years, in which the French, Belgian, and English manufacturers combined and did their utmost to crush me, in which struggle I lost more than $600,000 and gave it the most earnest effort of my life, I finally succeeded in 1879 in making plate-glass (equal to any in the world) without loss, since when there has been a small profit, but in no one year exceeding 5 per cent. on the capital invested. Hence you see that a slight reduction of tariff duties might be disastrous. I feel confident that if present tariff duties are maintained the push, energy and pluck of Americans are such that before 1900 they will accomplish that which took the Englishmen and Frenchmen three hundred years to accomplish; namely, that we will manufacture all the plate-glass the country requires and furnish it at such rates as to defy competition. The facts are, before plate-glass was made in America, the foreigner compelled us to pay $2.50 per foot. When American works were being established (to discourage us) they reduced the price to $1.50 per foot. The sharp competition and determined fight that we have made has reduced the price gradually until now the average price of all sizes is about 80 cents per foot, while the English and French and Belgian consumer pays over 60 cents per foot. Americans can do anything that can be done by men. Hence, I confidently reiterate that we shall, with improved methods and skill, in a few years, produce this article as low as it can be produced any where in the world. Therefore, in addition to national pride, I urge as a question of dollars and cents that it will be wise to maintain present duties. I trust that you will not permit myself and other American plate glass manufacturers to be crushed. Please stand by ns. I am, with high regard, very respectfully, yours, W. C. DEPAUW. P. S.-It is proper to say that owing to the great flood of February, 1883, and sharp competition we did not make a dollar last year, and this flood will so damage us to make profits impossible in 1884. Is it wise to crush us? D. The statements he made then are equally true to-day. Americans can do what any people on the earth can do, but they can not, in fifteen or sixteen years reach the same condition that France attained under an absolutely prohibitory tariff for two hundred years and England reached under a tariff eight to twelve times as large as ours for one hundred and sixty years. I have faith to believe that when we are old enough to have full crews of native Americans, that their "genius" will make improvements and discoveries that will revolutionize our business and enable us to compete on an equal ground with foreign makers, but that day has not yet come. In conclusion I want to urge upon you again that we produce essentially a luxury and should be so dealt with. As I understand the principles of the leading revenue reformers of the country, it is to lessen the taxation on all food and the necessaries of life, and to leave substantially untouched the duties on luxuries or imported articles which are bought by persons of wealth. As far as practicable the rule has been adopted to make the duty low on the cheaper articles and proportionately higher on the more expensive articles, so that the burdens of taxation, which have heretofore fallen upon persons of small means, who are dependent upon their labor, will be, as far as practicable, shifted to those who are more able to bear them. Not a foot of our product (except small sizes for mirrors on which the duty is only equivalent to 13 per cent. ad valorem) is used by any but the wealthy, who can well afford to pay a fair price for it. We are paying our employés good liberal wages-100 per cent. to 200 per cent. more than abroad-and making no more than a small profit; our losses and trials have been great, but we feel that our home competition has saved millions of dollars to the plate-glass consumers of America and we ask you to spare our lives, for a reduction in duty becomes abso lutely a matter of life and death to us. STATEMENT OF F. S. TOMLIN. President Bottle Blowers' League, Brooklyn, N. Y. The present rate of 1 cent per pound is not high enough, as is shown by the fact that last year (ending June 30, 1888) 140,000 gross of 1 pound bottles were imported, being an increase over the previous year of 75 per cent. The great bulk of this ware comes from Germany, where, as you may be aware, blowers work more hours per day and receive less pay than anywhere else in the world. We do not expect Congress nor any other branch of the Government to give us good wages, but we think we have a right to expect the Republican party to fix a duty on bottles that will protect us against our $1-per-day German competitors and give us a chance to obtain good living wages for ourselves. At present rates we can average about $25 per week, working ten months in the year. The other two months are required to make repairs, etc., and also to enable the men to recuperate, as by mutual agreement of manufacturers and blowers the stop is made in the excessively hot months of July and August. I do not think any fair-minded American citizen will claim these wages are too high. It will be absolutely out of the question to maintain present wages unless the rate of duty is raised, and it is wholly and solely a matter of wages; in fact, glass is all labor from the digging of the sand from the pit to delivering the finished product. In my judgment, in order to put glass bottles on an equality with window-glass, iron, woolen, and cotton manufactures and other industries and give us fair protection, the duty should be graduated from 1 to 2 cents per pound, according to size, and the duty on filled bottles should be the same as empty. When I say bottles I include greencolored, flint, and lime-glass bottles. STATEMENT OF F. L. BODINE, President American Window-Glass Manufacturing Association. Cylinder window-glass, unpolished, is a manufacture natural to the United States, because all materials required exist in widely extended territory. The manufacture is largely developed, and the capacity of furnaces now existing is greater than the total consumption of both American and imported glass. These furnaces are distributed through fifteen States, as follows: Massachusetts, 1; New York, 17; New Jersey, 25; Pennsylvania, 44; Delaware, 2; Maryland, 9; West Virginia, 2; Ohio, 20; Indiana, 6; Illinois, 8; Michigan, 1; Wisconsin, 1; Missouri, 2; Kansas, 1; Wy. oming Territory, 1; total, 140 furnaces in fifteen States and Territories. There are about 8,500 workmen employed directly by manufacturers, in addition to the large number indirectly engaged in mining and preparing the sand, lime, coal, lumber, clay, and soda consumed. The cost of these materials is almost entirely for labor in mining and transporting to furnaces. The necessity for duty on imported glass arises from the greater cost of raw materials, because of high-labor cost in preparing them, as well as from the higher wages paid by manufacturers in the United States. The wages paid for material amount to about 20 per cent. of the total cost. The wages paid by manufacturers amount to about 60 per cent. of the total cost. Making the total amount paid for labor in manufacturing window-glass, 80 per cent. The wages to the different classes of workmen are from two to three times those paid in Belgium, from whence comes most of the glass imported. According to the report of "Glass manufacture in Europe," Department of State, No. 29, page 389, the rates paid there (per month) are as follows, compared with same class here: The wages in Belgium are for much greater number of hours daily, and for the whole year, while in the United States the longest time worked is ten months, the average for past four years being less than eight months' blast. No later official data for this class of labor is accessible, but from general information, and because 1882 was a year of activity and high prices abroad, it is believed the difference is greater now against the United States. Since the reduction, July 1, 1883, of the duty on cylinder window-. glass, manufacturers have averaged running less than three-fourths the usual length of blast. Wages of workmen have been reduced. Imports have greatly increased, and the revenue for four years, since July, 1883, has been $1,250,000 greater than for the same period before that date. The rates of duty proposed by the Ways and Means Committee, in the House of Representatives bill No. make a reduction averaging on the actual imports last year 39 cents per half box, or about 35 per cent., and could only be met by a reduction of over 50 per cent. in wages of skilled labor. Imports of window-glass have largely increased since the reduction of duty, and foreign glass is now a much larger percentage of the total consumption, having advanced from the annual rate of from 16 to 29 per cent. before 1883 to 29 to 38 per cent. since 1883. The effect of the largely developed manufacture in the United States has been to reduce the price of American product and of the foreign glass, so that the selling price of American glass was lower January 1, 1888, than in 1860, as will appear from the following comparison of prices for the two periods: Imported glass has also been reduced in cost by American competi tion. The foreign (invoice) cost, per statement of Bureau of Statistics, averaged for year to July, 1877, 4.10 cents per pound; averaged for year to July, 1887, 2.27 cents per pound. The duty being specific this large reduction in foreign cost (45 per cent. in ten years) increases the equivalent ad valorem rate, but is no real advance, and foreign manufacturers have practically paid all the duty. Since the adoption of the sizes now specified in the tariff laws there has been a material change in the amounts consumed, so that a large quantity is required of large sizes. The cost of such sizes is greatly increased, and just discrimination and protection requires they be added to the tariff schedule with proportionate rates of duty. Decreased duty will increase the importation; inevitably and largely diminish the American product and reduce wages, besides reducing the number and time of workmen employed, and increase the revenue now in excess. Instead of lower duties, necessary and fair protection of manufacturers and interests of workmen and consumers require the present rates on the actual weight of glass with proportionate rate to cover additional larger sizes now used. For these reasons it is asked that the proposed bill be amended to read, on cylinder window-glass (unpolished) as below: No exceeding 10 by 15 inches square Above that and not exceeding 16 by 24 inches square.. Cents per pound. 31 31 DUTY ON GREEN GLASS BOTTLES. The manufacture of green glass bottles in the United States has been developed to the full extent of the consumption. The materials required exist in abundance in widely extended parts of the country. There are over 127 furnaces established in 16 States, from New Eng. land to California, as well as in Georgia, West Virginia, and Kentucky, viz: New Hampshire, 1; New York, 12; New Jersey, 39; Pennsylva nia, 32; Maryland, 6; West Virginia, 2; Kentucky, 5; Georgia, 1; Ohio, 9; Indiana, 3; Illinois, 9; Mississippi, 3; Wisconsin, 2; Minnesota, 1; Colorado, 1; California, 1. Although these furnaces have a capacity equal to the consumption of the country, imports are large and rapidly increasing. The amount of empty bottles alone (per statement of Bureau of Statistics) for the year, to July, 1887, was 14,300,000 pounds, having more than doubled since 1884, when the total imports were 6,900,000 pounds. The increase of imports in the last year to July, 1887, has been especially marked, amounting to over 75 per cent., and shows such rapid development as seriously threatens destruction of the industry. |