TABLE 21.-Average monthly imports of wood pulp (all kinds combined), from principal countries, by quarters

IMPORTS FROM PRINCIPAL COUNTRIES, BY MONTHS, ALL KINDS COMBINED

Table 22 shows the total imports of pulp by months from each of the important pulp-producing countries.

According to this table, there was much greater irregularity in the movement of imports than appears from the quarterly data. The most conspicuous recent changes are the marked increase in imports from April to June, 1930, the marked increase again from April to June, 1931, the marked increase in November, 1930, and again in November, 1931, the sharp decline in December, 1931, the exceptionally large figures in January and February, 1932 (the imports in January being the largest with the exception of February, 1930, recorded during any month covered by the table), and the very great decline during March, 1932.

TABLE 22.-Wood pulp: Imports from principal countries (all kinds combined),

by months

The exceptionally large figures during January and February, 1932, and the exceptionally small figures during March were largely attributable to changes in the imports from Sweden, which increased over 100 per cent from December to January but were less than onefifth as large in March as in January. The great decline in imports in March, 1932, was not abnormal, similar declines having appeared in 1931 and 1930. In all three of these years stocks of pulp were built up during the winter months and subsequently drawn upon. The stocks of imported wood pulp held in warehouses at the principal ports (as reported to the Tariff Commission by importers and railway companies) on February 1, 1932, were more than double

those for July 1, 1931, and about 50 per cent greater than on January 1, 1932.

It may be noted that during the winter of 1931-32 negotiations looking toward the adjustment of labor conditions in the Swedish pulp industry had been going on and in April a general strike took place.

Attention is also called to the irregular movements of the imports of chemical pulp from Finland and from Norway. The largest importations from Finland during any month since 1929 occurred in November, 1931; it is impossible to determine whether the large figure was due to the depreciated currency or represented deliveries on contracts made before depreciation set in. The imports from Finland since November have been much smaller than during that month. There has been a steady increase in imports of chemical pulp from Norway since August, 1931, but the totals are relatively small.

IMPORTS OF CHEMICAL AND MECHANICAL PULP FROM PRINCIPAL COUNTRIES, BY MONTHS

Table 23 shows the imports of wood pulp from each of the principal countries, distinguishing chemical pulp and mechanical pulp. TABLE 23.-Wood pulp: Imports of chemical and of mechanically ground wood pulp, from principal countries, by months

Source: Compiled from monthly import statistics. Aggregates of monthly totals vary slightly from total annual imports]

TABLE 23.-Wood pulp: Imports of chemical and of mechanically ground wood pulp, from principal countries, by months-Continued

[Source: Compiled from monthly import statistics. Aggregates of monthly totals vary slightly from total annual imports]

PRODUCTION AND SHIPMENTS BY DOMESTIC PULP MILLS AND RECEIPTS OF PAPER MILLS-ALL KINDS OF PULP COMBINED

PRODUCTION AND SHIPMENTS BY DOMESTIC PULP MILLS

The commission obtained reports from a large number of domestic pulp mills covering their production and shipments of pulp during each month beginning with January, 1929. These reports covered about 60 per cent of the total production of pulp, a proportion sufficiently large to indicate the probability that the monthly movements of production shown for the reporting mills are representative for all mills.

Table 24 shows by quarters from 1929 to 1931 the monthly average production by the pulp mills reporting to the Tariff Commission and their shipments to domestic paper mills, distinguishing those affiliated from those unaffiliated with the given shipping pulp mill. It will be seen from this table that the plants reporting to the Tariff Commission during most quarters shipped only one-eighth or one-tenth of their total output to paper mills unaffiliated with themselves. This proportion is decidedly lower than that shown for the pulp mills as a whole in their reports to the Bureau of the Census covering 1929, indicating that the mills reporting to the Tariff Commission were not representative of the entire industry in this respect. Nevertheless it is probable that the changes in the shipments of the reporting plants to unaffiliated paper mills are fairly parallel with the changes in the total shipments of all pulp producers to unaffiliated paper mills.

It will be seen that the combined shipments to affiliated and unaffiliated domestic mills during each quarter were very nearly the same as the production of that quarter, the slight variations being due to the fact that certain mills export small quantities of pulp and that some of the mills carry stocks which vary more or less from time to time. For the most part, however, domestic shipments are closely parallel with total production.

The table shows that domestic production of reporting mills held up well until the second quarter of 1930. In the third quarter there was a sharp drop after which production remained more or less stationary until the second quarter of 1931, after which, again, there was a sharp drop. The average monthly production in the fourth quarter of 1931, after depreciation had set in in the foreign pulp-producing countries, was about 2,800 tons less than in the preceding quarter, a decline of about 11⁄2 per cent. The decline in the third quarter of each of the three years shown is apparently partly due to seasonal causes.

TABLE 24.-Wood pulp: Production and shipments by domestic pulp mills reporting to the Tariff Commission, by monthly averages, by quarters

The relatively small totals for shipments from pulp mills to unaffiliated paper mills show much greater variation than the total production. These shipments to unaffiliated mills were well maintained until the first quarter of 1930. They dropped in the second quarter and again in the third quarter, after which they increased and then remained more or less stationary until the fourth quarter of 1931. The shipments to unaffiliated mills in the last quarter of 1931 were about 5,200 tons less per month than in the preceding quarter, a decline of about 20 per cent. The decline in the amount of shipments to affiliated mills between the third and the fourth quarter was 3,500 tons, or only about 2 per cent. As the result of this difference in the shipments to the two classes of mills, the proportion of the total shipments going to unaffiliated mills fell from 13 per cent in the third quarter of 1931 to 11 per cent in the fourth quarter.