We may mention that the waters of which we are the importers are apollinaris natural mineral water, hunyadi janos natural mineral water, friedrichshall natural mineral water.

STATEMENT OF THE UNDERWOOD COMPANY, OF FALMOUTH FORESIDE, ME.

We respectfully call your attention to the following facts, and as the opportunity now presents itself, ask you to assist in correcting the injustice which they disclose.

Under the present tariff, foreign mineral waters are admitted free. The green glass bottles which contain them pay a duty of 30 per cent. ad valorem; at the present price of bottles in Europe, this makes the duty on a gross of foreign mineral water less than 75 cents.

The same green glass bottles empty pay a duty of 1 cent per pound; a gross of quart bottles weigh 225 pounds, thus making the duty on a gross of empty bottles $2.25.

This inconsistency of the present tariff gives to the importer of foreign mineral waters an advantage of $1.50 per gross over us in the principal item of cost in bottling waters, the bottles, and does not help the glass manufacturers of this country, as they do not make a bottle suitable for bottling the Underwood Spring water, and if they did, the protection of the duty of 1 cent. per pound would be largely nullified to them by the fact that the bottles that have been imported, filled with foreign mineral waters, after being emptied of their original contents, are on the market in competition with the product of the American glass manufacturers.

We have applied to the Treasury Department for a drawback of the duty paid on imported bottles, when the same are exported filled with the Underwood Spring water, basing our claim for such drawback on the drawback allowed on tin that has been made into cans and are exported filled with American products; they refuse us that partial relief.

Several ways suggest themselves whereby this inconsistency of the present tariff and this partial ruling of the Treasury Department can be corrected:

A duty on foreign mineral waters.

The same duty on the bottles containing foreign mineral waters as on empty bottles.

The free admission of bottles to be filled with Underwood Spring water.

A provision for a drawback on imported bottles exported filled with Underwood Spring water.

You may consider this a matter hardly within the province of public business. Please remember that the provisions relating to mineral waters in the present tariff were inserted at the instigation and for the benefit of a foreign corporation, and that we ask only to be placed on the same footing with them.

FLAX, HEMP, AND JUTE

STATEMENT OF CHARLES BOYCE, OF BOSTON, MASS.

The flax and hemp spinning industry is comparatively young in this country, and a growing one if properly protected. It would manifestly be unjust to admit any of the manufactures thereof free of duty, and when it is proposed to admit the raw material (flax and hemp) free you will see that there is no unfair reduction of duty on the manufactured goods, such as linen thread, yarns, and burlaps, but that if any reduction should be proposed there would then exist the same proportion of protection as at present.

This seems to me to be a case worthy of special notice, and the present existing protection must be for the general good.

STATEMENT OF JOHN H. ROSS,

Superintendent Boston Thread and Twine Company, Jamaica Plain, Mass.

We would earnestly urge you to use your best efforts to protect our industry, which is threatened with annihilation by the provisions in the Mills bill.

A reduction is proposed equivalent to about 8 per cent. on our raw material, and 25 per cent. on our manufactured twine. This, in an industry already less protected than any of the other textiles, means an entire transfer of our business to Great Britain and Ireland, where many mills now idle will at once begin the manufacture of twines now made only in this country.

Our mill produces principally flax threads, yarns, and fine twines. We do not make binder twine or any similar coarse goods.

If we understand the matter correctly, there is no combination or trust, or other agreement in relation to the price of binder twine. Some time ago there was a combination between the manufacturers of sisal and manilla binder twine, but we understand that it is now discontinued.

In answer to your inquiry about binder twine, would say that, if we are correctly informed, jute binder twine now being made in Dundee is becoming a severe competitor of the binder twine made in the United States. As sisal and manilla twine are made on one particular kind of machinery, American hemp binder twine on other machinery, and jute binder twine on still different machinery, we think it is hardly possible for any high prices to rule on binder twine.

A few years ago this mill was started, and we now have invested a large amount of capital, and have brought together a force of skilled workers, and have a moderate and increasing business. We are to-day suffering from severe foreign competition even under the present tariff, and we are seriously disturbed at the recommendation of the "Ways and Means Committee" in their report of the so-called Mills tariff bill. The present duty on flax thread and twine is 40 per cent. ; the proposition is to reduce it to 25 per cent.

The present duty on hemp and jute twines is 40 per cent.; the proposi tion is to reduce it to 15 per cent.

The present duty on flax and hemp yarns is 35 per cent.; the propo sition is to reduce it to 15 per cent.

The duty on the above goods should not be reduced from the present rate, and if you will examine the record of imports and the average protection you will see that in the flax, hemp, and jute schedule we now have less protection than the other important industries. In fact we are to-day limited in the line of goods which we can make because of the lack of adequate protection.

The tariff bill proposes to take the duty off the raw material, but as the raw material represents only a part of the cost of the manufactured goods it would give us but little advantage if this duty was removed. While admitting that we should have a slight advantage in free raw material if present duties are maintained on manufactured goods, we are still anxious to co-operate with the American growers of flax and hemp, that they may have the protection necessary for their industry. We also believe it is a wrong policy for this Government to be dependent on foreign countries for a supply of fiber, much of which should be raised here.

We have manufactured some crash and other linen, but can not continue if the present duty of 35 per cent. on linens is to be reduced to 25 per cent.

What we have made of linen piece goods satisfies us that the protec tion should be greater, rather than less than the present tariff.

We can not urge you too strongly to protect our interests and enable us to continue our industry.

We are paying three times the average wages paid for similar labor throughout Europe.

STATEMENT OF G. H. TORR,

Treasurer of the Smith and Dove Manufacturing Company, manufacturers of flax threads, twines, and yarns, Andover, Mass.

As the "Mills tariff bill" proposes to reduce the duties on flax goods, we wish to call your attention to the present position of the American flax manufacturing industry. The spinning of flax by machinery in this country was begun in a few small establishments about fifty years ago; our business was started here in the year 1835. The protection afforded by the tariff has never been sufficient to make the weaving of flax goods profitable, except in the very coarsest kinds, on account of the cost of the labor required in this work. Only about half as much labor is required in the spinning, and for this reason manufacturers of linen threads, yarns, and twines have been better able to compete with the goods produced by the very scantily paid labor of Europe. But in linen spinning it is only in the coarse grades of goods that any success has been attained, and this success has not been sufficient to attract so much capital into the business as to develop it largely and stimulate American ingenuity to improve its machinery. It is therefore a comparatively small business. There are, however, about $20,000,000 worth of linen goods imported into this country annually, all or nearly all of which might be made here, to the great benefit of our working people. This would be brought about rapidly by increasing the duties so as to give the same protection to these goods as is given to manufactures of silk, wool, and cotton. By allowing the duties to remain as they now are the present position of this industry can be maintained

and probably slowly improved. On the other hand any reduction whatever will cripple some branches of the business, especially in the tiner kinds of goods, and a reduction as large as is proposed by the "Mills tariff bill" would in all probability entirely exterminate this industry, which now employs thousands of operatives and several millions of capital.

The statistics of the United States Government for 1887 show that the protection given to the large manufacturing industries in this country averages as follows:

Now the flax industry has to compete in the labor market with these better protected industries; that is to say, the employés in flax mills are not satisfied with any less wages than are paid for a like amount of skill, care, and labor in the silk, woolen, or cotton mills, and it is therefore impossible to proportion the wages according to the amount of protection received. We therefore claim that it would be unjust discrimination against the flax industry to make any reduction in its protection before reduction has been made in the protection of these other industries sufficient to place us all nearly on an equal footing.

For the above reasons we respectfully protest against any reduction in the present duties on flax goods.

We would also protest against the placing of raw flax on the free list, as we think it best for the general interest of the country, and also for the manufacturers, to encourage the growth of this material.

And we also emphatically protest against the placing of dressed or hackled flax on the free list, as this is partially manufactured flax goods, about one-half the cost of labor in some kinds of yarns and twines being expended on the dressing of the flax. The placing of these half-made goods on the free list would injure the American flax growers, flax dressers, and flax spinners.

It is a fact that protection cheapens goods, but not immediately, this result being caused by Yankee ingenuity in improving the machinery and the methods of manufacture, and by home competition. This fact can not, however, be shown so well in our business of flax spinning as in some other industries, because the manufacture of flax goods has not been protected sufficiently to give it such development as would encourage the making and improving in this country of the peculiar machinery it requires. So all our machinery is made in Great Britain, and it is of exactly the same productive capacity as that used by our competitors in Europe. In fact, all of the best flax machinery in the world is of British manufacture.

This supremacy of Great Britain in the manufacture of linen machinery, and also of linen goods, was not, however, the result of a freetrade policy. For a period of sixty-five years, during the reigns of George I, George II, and George III, duties were levied on flax and hemp and the various manufactures thereof imported into Great Britain, and from these duties bounties were paid to encourage the flax and hemp industries. In 1748 an act was passed prohibiting the wearing or importation of certain linen goods of foreign make, and this act remained in force in 1783. These facts are on record in a volume printed in the year 1783 by authority of the British Government.

At that time thirty acts were in force relating to linen manufacture. These laws had been enacted at various times from 1717 to 1783, for

the encouragement and regulation of the flax and hemp industries. I quote an extract from the preamble to Act VIII enacted in 1745, as it has some bearing on your question: "Whereas the manufactures of linen, made in the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, are of late years greatly improved and increased, whereby the price of linens as well of foreign as of home fabric hath been considerably reduced, and there is reason to believe that said manufactures of linen would be greatly improved, and the exportation thereof to foreign ports considerably increased if an additional bounty were allowed on all British and Irish linens exported."

Under our present tariff the fine kinds of linen threads can not be spun profitably here because of the larger amount of labor required for fine goods, which labor is 50 per cent. or more cheaper in Europe than here. On the border between the coarse and the fine goods, we have very sharp competition with the foreign manufacturers, and on the coarse kinds we have equally sharp competition with the American manufacturers. In fact, the goods in which the home competition comes in do not generally afford any larger per centage of profit than the kinds on which the competition is foreign.

The wages paid to employés in flax mills in Great Britain average about 50 per cent. lower than the wages paid for the same work in this country, and in some parts of Europe these wages are less than in Great Britain. The protection given to the flax industry has not been suffi cient to overcome at all times this difference in the cost of manufacturing, and in consequence the business of manufacturing flax goods has been developed very slowly in this country; but the returns for the year 1887 show that flax, hemp, jute, and manufactures thereof rate fourth in invoice value of imports, being $33,807,283, and with proper protection there is an opening here for a very large increase in American manufacturing business, and a corresponding increase in the prosperity of the American working classes.

We would again call your attention to the fact that dressed flax or hackled flax is not a raw material, but is partially manufactured flax goods. The hackling of flax is a process requiring great skill, and flax is not placed on the market by the farmers in this condition. Of the amount paid for labor in making unbleached flax yarn, thread, or twine about one-half is paid for hackling the flax, and the admission of hackled flax free of duty would be very injurious to a large class of American operatives, and to manufacturers and growers of flax; while it would benefit only those large British linen works which have small branches in this country to complete the manufacture of such kinds of goods as require but little labor.

The manufacture of flax and hemp goods is well established in several places in Massachusetts, and we trust will receive your hearty support.

STATEMENT OF MARSHALL & CO., SHREWSBURY MILLS, KEARNY, N. J.

The wages paid in the flax-spinning industry in the United States are two and a half times more than in England, except in the flax-dressing department, where they are just double, and the wages paid in other textile industries bear about the same proportion to those paid in England. These wages can only be paid while these industries are protected. Under the present duty of 40 per cent. on threads, etc., and 35 per cent.