safety glass that the Chrysler Motor Co. uses. The Libbey-Owens Co. sells every bit of safety glass and any other glass that the General Motors Co. uses. The Ford Motor Co. makes its own safety glass by buying the window glass in the open market, and you gentlemen are imposed upon by the publication of those figures. So many times we are asked to explain "How do you explain those large profits?"

Well, they do not have to separate their profits on the window glass and on the plate glass and on safety glass.

Take Libbey-Owens, for example; they make different kinds of building glass, and tile. The Pittsburgh Plate is also in the production of window glass, plate glass, paints, chemicals, tile, and all sorts of products of that kind. So that it hits us poor ignoramuses who can only make window glass rather hard to have to reconcile our poor showing with those big profits of those companies, because they are foxy enough to keep up the price on safety glass to a very profitable figure.

My own company does make some safety glass, but these big automobile companies have been very hesitant about dealing with a small factory.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Biggers, who is the head of the Libbey-Owens people, takes a different viewpoint from you, doesn't he?

Mr. MONRO. I don't think so.

The CHAIRMAN. He was a member of the advisory council with reference to this matter, and he with a great number of others-I think that is in the record-said that these reciprocal-trade treaties. had been a benefit and asked for a continuation of them.

Mr. MONRO. I do not understand that policy on the part of Mr. Biggers, because as the president of the Association of Window Glass Manufacturers, I was authorized to present opposition to any change at that time in the Belgian agreement, and when I presented the argument against the reciprocal trade treaties to Czechoslovakia, the Libbey-Owens-Ford Co. was also one of the eight companies that I represented at that time. Maybe Mr. Biggers changed his mind after he got into public life.

The CHAIRMAN. I don't know about that, but I notice on page 172 of the House hearings that the business advisory council of the Department of Commerce to which he was appointed, and he was the vice chairman, that John D. Biggers, president of Libby-OwensFord Glass Co.--that is the gentleman, isn't it?

Mr. MONRO. Yes; I know him very well.

The CHAIRMAN. He advocated that. He said among other things:

The council wishes to emphasize the belief that the results of trade agreements must be regarded in the light of their effect on our national economy as a whole and not solely in the light of their effect on a given segment of the industries or agriculture.

Mr. MONRO. Can you reconcile it that I was authorized to appear in opposing the Czechoslovakian agreement on behalf of Mr. Biggers' company, and the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., the American Window Glass Co., and other companies? It may be that they are so big that the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

Senator LAFOLLETTE. Did the dissolution of the association in the industry have anything to do with your view with regard to reciprocal trade agreements?

Mr. MONRO. Not at all.

Senator GUFFEY. Has the glass industry ever advocated a lowering of the tariff in any part of the industry?

Mr. MONRO. No, not that I know of, because our costs of production are all higher than in any other glass-producing country in the world. The cost of our raw materials is a whole lot higher, and the labor is incomparable. We are paying today 64 cents an hour for common labor, while the last report of my engineer in Belgium, who up until a few years ago was general manager of the Belgian syndicate plants, gave me the rate of common labor at 14% cents per hour there. Senator GUFFEY. Will you file here the record of the profits of your company for the last 10 years?

Mr. MONRO. I have them here. I am not very proud of it.

Senator GUFFEY. Haven't we improved the product in this country? Mr. MONRO. Yes.

Senator GUFFEY. And if I remember rightly, I think the American Window Glass Co. is making the best?

Mr. MONRO. It may interest you, gentlemen, to know that the American Window Glass Co. introduced the first improvement in the process of making window glass, and that was in 1903, when we introduced a mechanical process of blowing window-glass cylinders. Formerly they were blown, as I understand, by hand for over 350 years, and the average size which was blown was about 12 inches in diameter and about 7 feet long. Sometimes we had what they call 90-inch blowers, who could blow a narrow cylinder 90 inches long. When the American Window Glass Co.'s process was at its height, we were drawing cylinders that were 33 inches in diameter and 500 inches long, and one man would manipulate three or four, and sometimes five machines, himself. That illustrates some of the progress. Since then-beginning about 1927-since then the entire industry throughout the world has changed. There is no more hand blowing except here and there on a small furnace for a particular kind of glass. All window glass made in the world today, I am safe in making the statement, is made in what we call the sheet-drawn process. There are three--the Libbey-Owens process, and they draw the glass from the bath in sheet form to a height of about 3 feet, and then bend it over a roll and send it across flattening tables of rollers and right out through a long lehr 200 feet long.

In the Fourcault process, which we are using, and which is in more general use than the Libbey-Owens, because the Libbey-Owens is a patented process and in the Fourcault process, the patents have expired, we draw a continuous sheet from the bath of glass vertically. and we cut the glass right off up above after passing through an annealing oven, which of course is necessary, but the height at which we cut the glass off above the bath and still have the glass annealed is only about 25 feet.

The Pittsburgh Plate Co. is using a similar process, but instead of drawing their glass through a slot which we use to hold it out to the required width, because if you draw without a slot the glass will pull in toward the center, they invented a submerged floater which has the effect of overcoming the surface tension which causes the glass to pull in to the center, and the Pittsburgh Plate draws from this submerged floater, and their glass is cut off above the same as in the Fourcault process. The Fourcault process is used in all of the countries of the

world except a few furnaces--the Pilkington Bros. in England are using in the majority of their furnaces on window glass the Pittsburgh Plate process. There are a few others--I think France has one furnace using the Pittsburgh Plate process. I am not sure whether Belgium has one furnace using the Pittsburgh Plate process. Japan also has one furnace using the Libbey-Owens process. Germany has a Libbey-Owens process, Belgium has a Libbey-Owens process, and France has a Libbey-Owens process, and all the other factories are using this Fourcault process. The Japs are using the Fourcault, the Libbey-Owens, and the Pittsburgh process.

Senator GUFFEY. How did they get them?

Mr. MONRO. They did not need a license under the Fourcault, but they made a deal with the Pittsburgh Plate Glass and Libbey-Owens for a license.

Senator GUFFEY. Is there any cylinder glass blown at all, Mr. Monro?

Mr. MONRO. No; excepting perhaps in Germany, where they blow colored glass.

Senator CLARK. The Pittsburgh Co. and Libbey-Owens are building up their own competitors, aren't they, by giving those licenses?

Mr. MONRO. They do not ship any glass over here. They protect themselves by an agreement that none of the glass produced on their machine will be shipped into the United States.

Senator DAVIS. You have given us the difference in the wages between Belgium and the United States. What is the difference in wages between Japan and the United States?

Mr. MONRO. Mr. Biggers, when he returned from Japan a few years ago, made the statement that the average rate of wages paid in Japan in the glass industry was-and he did not single out window glass but he took window glass and plate and made it just for the glass industry--was 40 cents a day, which was lower than the price that we were paying by the hour.

Senator DAVIS. You are paying 60 cents an hour?

Mr. MONRO. We are now paying 64 cents an hour since the 1st of February. Prior to the 1st of February we were paying 58 cents an hour. At the time the Smoot-Hawley bill was passed, we were paying 35 cents an hour.

Senator DAVIS. There is a great hullaballoo around here that the depression was caused by the Hawley-Smoot Act. Did the depression in your industry begin with the passing of the Hawley-Smoot Act? Mr. MONRO. The depression in the window-glass industry began before the passage of the Hawley-Smoot Act.

The CHAIRMAN. Has it kept up ever since?

Mr. MONRO. Not continuously, Senator, but it may interest you to know that in 1931 the shipments of domestic glass were 5,190,000 boxes; in 1932 it was 4,398,000 boxes; in 1933 it was 5,600,000 boxes; in 1934 it was 7,954,000 boxes; in 1935 it was 9,197,000 boxes; in 1936 it was 9,736,000 boxes; in 1937 it was 11,321,000 boxes. You know, there was a revival in business in 1937 and everybody thought that we were going to pull ourselves out of the soup. It fell back again in 1938 by the window glass dropping to 8,250,000 boxes. Again it picked up in 1939 and we reached the total of 11,285,000 boxes. That is the history of the shipments of window glass following the HawleySmoot bill.

The CHAIRMAN. Are any of the American industries engaged in this business interested in the foreign plants?

Mr. MONRO. Except that the Libbey-Owens people, of course, are interested in the royalties they get. I don't really know enough, Mr. Chairman, I am unable to say whether they have stock interests or not; I could not tell you. I would not like to go on record as saying whether they have or have not.

The CHAIRMAN. Your plant has not?

Mr. MONRO. No. We had our cylinder process under contract for license and were receiving royalties from England at one time, and France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia, and Japan, but when the patents expired and the war came on, they quit using it and went over to the flat Fourcault process. The CHAIRMAN. Did you appear before the Smoot-Hawley committee that was considering that tariff law?

Mr. MONRO. I did. Not before the Senate committee; I appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee at that time.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you advocate a higher rate than what was in the law then?

Mr. MONRO. I may have done that, because you never get all that you ask for as a rule.

The CHAIRMAN. Did Senator Reed represent your viewpoint at that time on this tariff rate on this glass?

Mr. MONRO. He no doubt presented our side of the matter.

The CHAIRMAN. He was in sympathy with it?

Mr. MONRO. He was in sympathy with it, I think.

The CHAIRMAN. If he offered that schedule on the floor of the Senate, it was no doubt after a conference with you?

Mr. MONRO. He knew what was going on.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you a member of the American Tariff Board? Mr. MONRO. I am president of the American Tariff League.

The CHAIRMAN. President of it?

Mr. MONRO. Yes, president of it.

The CHAIRMAN. You did not agree with Mr. Hoover when on January 6, 1932, he reduced these rates in the Smoot-Hawley tariff? Mr. MONRO. We certainly did not.

The CHAIRMAN. All right.

Mr. MONRO. I just want to remind the chairman that I was on a committee who came down here to protest against the passage of this Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act, and we had a day set for hearing, and I was here on that day, but the day before, the Senate got unusually busy and passed the bill before we had our hearing, and I remember you were gracious enough to give us a hearing even after the passage of the bill.

The CHAIRMAN. We were at least courteous, weren't we?

Mr. MONRO. You were, but you did say one thing that you may have forgotten. When I proceeded to point out how we were likely to suffer from the passage of this act, you asked me then, "Is it not a fact, Mr. Monro, that your industry has just within a few years received a 25-percent reduction under Presidential proclamation on window-glass duties?" and I said, "Yes," and your comment was "I should not think that you would have very much to fear from any more." You may not remember that.

The CHAIRMAN. I don't remember it, but I am sure if you talked to me, you persuaded me to your viewpoint. [Laughter.]

Senator LA FOLLETTE. It was a little late then, wasn't it, Mr. Monro?

Senator CLARK. Do you think that the country as a whole would be better off to just go back to the Smoot-Hawley bill?

Mr. MONRO. I do not advocate that.
Senator CLARK. What do you advocate?

Mr. MONRO. I advocate leaving things as they are.
Senator CLARK. That is the Smoot-Hawley bill.

Mr. MONRO. Oh, no, it is not. It is 25 percent below the SmootHawley bill. President Hoover came along and a good old Republican and under the United States Tariff Commission recommending a reduction of duty of 25 percent, he issued the Presidential proclamation.

Senator CLARK. You just said a minute ago that is what you advocated.

Mr. MONRO. Oh, no. I beg your pardon. I said I did not advocate going back to the Smoot-Hawley, because we are not under SmootHawley..

Senator CLARK. I asked you what you did advocate, and you said you advocated staying under this 25-percent reduction.

Mr. MONRO. Yes, I do, but along comes the Committee on Reciprocity and cuts 30 percent more off the 25-percent reduction.

Senator CLARK. By what treaty is that?

Mr. MONRO. In the Czechoslovakian treaty.
Senator CLARK. That is not now in effect.

Mr. MONRO. That was suspended because of Hitler going in there and making it a part of Germany, and it might interest you to know that they discharged all of the engineers around these factories, and some officials in Prague took over the management of all of those factories, and they could not even get enough lumber to pack the glass that they were producing. They were standing it out in the sheds. Senator CLARK. You did not kick on that?

Mr. MONRO. We did not care what went on in Czechoslovakia when they could not get their glass over here.

Senator CLARK. But in general, you think the country as a whole would be better off to go back to the Smoot-Hawley?

Mr. MONRO. Oh, no.

Senator CLARK. Not in this particular industry, but in the country as a whole? You are also president of the American High Protective Tariff League, and I am asking you your view in that capacity. Do you think the country ought to go back to the Smoot-Hawley bill, or possibly, as you advocated down here during the hearings on the Smoot-Hawley bill, even hiking the rates up a little bit?

Mr. MONRO. I think you are asking me to commit myself too far in regard to all industries, because improvements have taken place in industries which would make it inadvisable to let them have the protection of the Smoot-Hawley bill.

Senator CLARK. Which ones?

Mr. MONRO. I don't know. I only take our own for an exampleSenator CLARK (interposing). The Prohibitive Tariff League covers the whole country.

Mr. MONRO. We do not prohibit

Senator CLARK (interposing). In your capacity as president, you ought to be able to tell us the particular industries where you think

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