Senator WALSH. One of the witnesses spoke here the other day of the transportation of sodium and other deposits of that character. Do you know of those commodities?

Mr. BOOTH. From California?
Senator WALSH. Yes.

Mr. BOOTH. No; I do not. come from?

What section of California does that

Senator WALSH. Why, the Death Valley country, of course.
Mr. BOOTH. That is experimental yet.

Senator THOMAS. Do you not think that one, if not the only, solution of the problem, or possible problem, of monopoly, is for the Government of the United States to build and operate a line of vessels from coast to coast for the carrying on of the ordinary traffic on the seas, just as they have been doing between Panama and New York? Mr. BOOTH. Our judgment is that if we could be allowed the opportunity to test our capacity for getting competing ships through the canal under a free tolls schedule that we would probably be able to save the Government that exploitation, but in the event that we were not able to and nobody knows whether we can or not until we tryin the event we are not able to do it, there is nothing to do but to answer the question in the way you ask.

Senator SIMMONS. Let me ask you this: Suppose you get the benefit of the competition you have been talking about-which I hope you will get whether there are tolls or not-and as the result of that competition you get the price of carrying those citrus fruits to ports on the Atlantic coast reduced to a rate that allows simply a reasonable profit to the transportation companies, do you think that then they could carry oranges for something near one-half of the present railroad rate?

Mr. BOOTH. That is our thought, Senator.

Senator SIMMONS. Then your thought is if you can get the benefit of this competition, only having to pay a reasonable rate, that instead of having to pay $1.20 you could get your fruit landed in New York at something near one-half the present railroad rate?

Mr. BOOTH. That is our thought, Senator.

Senator SIMMONS. Then your thought is if you can get the benefit of this competition, only having to pay a reasonable rate, that instead of having to pay $1.20 you could get your fruit landed in New York for 60 cents a hundred? The tolls on that hundred pounds will be 3 cents. You could pay tolls and still get a rate of 57 cents a hundred less than you are now paying. Do you not think that as the result of the Government's building that canal, you getting 57 cents taken off the $1.20 you have to pay now, that you could without any wrong to you allow the Government to have that 3 cents a hundred in order to help pay the cost of operating that canal? Do you think that in those circumstances you ought to ask the Government, after giving you the canal free, after building the canal for you and shortening the distance, to pay your pilotage through there, to pay the expense of lifting the ships up on the locks and letting them down on the other side, and incurring all the expense incident to the passage through the canal? Do you not think you could afford, when you get on every 100 pounds of oranges 57 cents reduction, to let the Government have the 3 cents a hundred, without any injustice to you, to

defray these expenses that all of the people of the country will have to bear unless you help them to bear?

Mr. BOOTH. I do not know why we should help the country to bear it any more than they should help us to bear it.

Senator SIMMONS. But you get a benefit, according to my ques tion and it is based upon your admission-of 57 cents on every 100 pounds.

Mr. BOOTH. Your question, if I may be pardoned, Senator, does not go quite as far as I should like to have it, because the presumption based upon your own statement, the presumption that we can get a competitive price

Senator SIMMONS. I thought you were basing your whole statement upon the idea that there would be competition, that you would get the benefit of that competition, and that the competition would bring the rates down to a reasonable profit.

Mr. BOOTH. We will get the benefit of competition if we do not have the hindrance which the canal tolls will give us. That is my argument entirely. We heard yesterday, here at this meeting, a great deal of discrimination between England and the United States over this canal toll proposition. My thought, if I may be pardoned the statement, is that the canal tolls under existing conditions is going to be a discrimination in favor of the lines now in existence in our own country, regardless of whether it is or is not a discrimination in favor of the lines of some country. That is the point: And the discrimina tion does run against ourselves in its present analysis, and if it should seem to be the ultimate wisdom that that be allowed to remain as it is now, and that discrimination not be imposed against us, then we will get, and then only will we get, the benefit of a competing condition which you cite in your premise.

Senator SIMMONS. I do not know that I quite follow you.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Have you any further statement to make, Mr. Booth?

STATEMENT OF MR. ELMER E. CHASE, SAN JOSE, CAL.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Give your name, address, and business to the stenographer.

Mr. CHASE. My name is Elmer E. Chase, residence San Jose, Cal., business fruit canning.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I was directed by the San Jose Chamber of Commerce to come here and if possible obtain a hearing before your committee, that the earnest protest of that body might be presented to you against the repeal of the free tolls.

The San Jose Chamber of Commerce is composed of between 500 and 600 of the business and professional men of San Jose and of many of the producers of the surrounding community. The Santa Clara Valley, Santa Clara County, of which San Jose is the center, is the largest producer of dry and canned fruit of any other section of the State of like area.

We have, as has been stated by Mr. Booth, looked forward for many years to the completion of this cenel and to the relief from the rail monopoly that hes existed in our section; and the very high rates of freight, which are perhaps justified by the natural conditions

existing; and it is our belief that the commerce of our section, the products of our section, ought to be permitted, in passing from one portion of our coast to another, to enjoy the benefits of free tolls. In other words, that no direct tax should be placed upon that commerce because of the fact that it is passing through the Panama Canal.

I shall not attempt to enter into any of the technical points that have been involved in this hearing, because it would only be a reiteration of what has already been presented to you; but I wish to call your attention to the condition that exists on the Pacific coast-quite different from conditions existing out here-the fact that we have been sadly hampered because of lack of proper water competition; the fact that we have had the high rates to pay both on our products that are going out and merchandise coming to our coast; and the fact that the development of our section of the country has been greatly retarded because of those conditions. The prosperity of the country has suffered, and it seems to me and it seems to our people that we should be given the full benefit of this waterway at Panama.

If I might be permitted for just one moment to refer to the economic side of this question: I was impressed with the statement of Mr. Foraker, that the primary purpose of it, the canal, being therefore not commercial, for that is only incidental, but the national defense; I do not think we could afford to have any copartnership in the transaction, and so forth.

It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that if the primary object of this canal was for the purpose of national defense we might logically assume that the canal would have been built, even though there may have been no commercial use made of that waterway. Therefore it hardly seems reasonable that this particular commerce that may pass through that canal should be taxed for the maintenance and operation of that canal, to pay the interest, and, eventually, to pay the cost of its construction. If it is good policy to tax commerce for that purpose, why should we limit it to simply that portion of commerce which is passing through the canal? That question arose in my mind, and I wish simply to bring it out. I think that perhaps it had not been touched on.

Senator THOMAS. I think that is one of the strongest points that have been made. It is applicable to all commerce.

Mr. CHASE. I have nothing further, Mr. Chairman. I do not want to take up your time further. I thank you.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Do the members of the committee desire to ask any questions of Mr. Chase? If not, Mr. Chase, you are excused.

Mr. Ransom will be the next witness, if present.

STATEMENT OF MR. F. H. RANSOM, PORTLAND, OREG.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Give your name, residence, and occupation to the stenographer, and then make any statement you desire in reference to the matter.

Mr. RANSOM. My residence is Portland, Oreg. I am in the lumber business.

Mr. Chairman and Senators, I was requested to come here by a committee meeting in Portland, representing various industries, manufacturing, horticulture, and so forth, and being in the lumber

business I would probably dwell more particularly upon that, and having some notes here and being far from an orator, I shall not endeavor to take up the question of honor or right or wrong regarding the use of this canal

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Right there, you will pardon me for interrupting to say with reference to what you have said, that I am sure this committee will be far more impressed by facts than by oratory. Therefore you need not trouble now about your not being an orator. Senator THOMAS. Yes; we can furnish that part.

Mr. RANSOM. But I would say that if those men that we have to represent us in the treaty have made such a treaty as takes from our hands the control of this canal, built by us, and on American soil, our children, and I think our children's children, will live to have a very adverse opinion of their representatives as traders.

Neither will I discuss the economic question of the canal, except to try and bring out to you the necessity of our having this canal in operation in the most open and free manner for our industries.

In Washington and in Oregon we have directly employed by sawmills and logging camps-and when I say directly employed I mean the men that draw their pay directly from those industries, not including such men as sash and door manufacturers, nor shingle manufacturers, nor steamboat men, nor the stevedores that load vessels we have in those two States 120,000 men enjoying employment direct from this lumber industry alone. I am not so familiar with the number in California, but I would say that there were 30,000 men employed there.

Senator SIMMONS. Would you let me ask you there, if it will not disturb you, what sort of lumber that is?

Mr. RANSOM. The lumber is largely fir, Senator. There is some spruce and some cedar, although the cedar goes largely into the shingle manufacture, and I am speaking now more particularly of the fogging and sawmill operations.

It is my experience that it would be a pretty good average to say that for every thousand feet of lumber in our northwestern country, at least, that every thousand feet produced requires the employment of two men a day each. In other words, it takes two men to get out 1,000 feet of lumber.

Senator SIMMONS. I am afraid it takes three men in the South.

Mr. RANSOM. I am speaking of just the men that are directly employed. I am not speaking of the men, and I believe it is safe to say that 75 or 80 per cent of the cost of this lumber is spent in labor. I make that statement because I think, coming here, we represent labor that must be employed as much as any other element. Senator THOMAS. That is all being employed, notwithstanding the fact the canal has not yet opened?

Mr. RANSOM. No, sir; it is not.

Senator THOMAS. Why will it not continue whether the tolls are charged or not?

Mr. RANSOM. It is not all being employed to-day, sir.

Senator THOMAS. Well, that is due to conditions with which the canal has no immediate connection, is it not?

Mr. RANSOM. A great many of our people have made preparations have borrowed money and gone ahead expecting to increase the scope of their business. They have gone ahead of a great many,

them. In fact, we have been living on canal prospects in the West, and it was certainly a disappointment to think there was any question that we should have to pay a toll in an American waterway any more than our friends in the North would have to pay through the waterways there.

Senator THOMAS. I am very much gratified to learn that, because it was said to our Finance Committee, during the consideration of the tariff law, that if lumber was permitted free all those men would go out of employment entirely. I am glad to know that some of them, notwithstanding that fact, still are at work, and that arrangements are being made to increase the business.

Mr. RANSOM. Oregon has more timber than any other one State in the Union. In Oregon and Washington we have about 900,000,000,000 feet of timber. The cut in Öregon is considerably less than the cut of Washington, but the cut of the two States is in the neighborhood of 6,000,000,000 feet per annum.

This timber at the present rate will last for a great many years. Of course, there has been a ratio of increase in cutting, and the time will be greatly shortened if the ratio shall continue, but the last few years there has not been that increased ratio. But there is a point I should like to bring out, which applies to the manufacturer, and to the manufacture possibly wholly in the mills. That is the tremendous waste. The lower the freight rate we believe the cleaner our land can be made of timber, and there is standing in some of our forests, after the logging has been presumably finished, as much timber as in many an Eastern forest, and it is pitiful, but we can see no alternative except to leave it there.

The gentleman from Boston yesterday-Mr. Randall-I believe. dwelt upon the fact of large timbers, timbers of certain value, because they were large or extraordinary. We have shipped lumber to the Atlantic coast, but it has been only what we would call specialties. What we hope to enjoy by the use of the canal is to take lumber, or timber that to-day is being wasted, and put it into something marketable and sell it on the Atlantic coast.

Senator THOMAS. Would it interrupt you if I called your attention right there to a statement of Mr. Humphrey, a Congressman from Washington, made here last week?

Mr. RANSOM. I am not familiar with his statement.

Senator THOMAS. He said: "You can take a carload of mill lumber to-day I will say 1,000 feet to-day-and you can send that lumber down the Pacific coast in a vessel to the Isthmus, 103 miles across the Isthmus by the Tehuantepec Railroad, put it on another vessel, bring it up to Philadelphia, put it on the railroad there, and send it back to Indianapolis for about 1 cent or 2 cents less than you can send it direct from Seattle to Indianapolis or east of the Pacific coast ports." If that can be done by breaking bulk twice and by the railway shipment of over 100 miles, which evidently costs much more than this amount of toll, why can not that waste you speak of be utilized at present?

Mr. RANSOM. Assuming that, has any lumber ever been shipped to Indianapolis ?

Senator THOMAS. I do not know. I am simply taking the word of the witness. He is a Congressman from Washington and evidently knows what he is talking about.