The CHAIRMAN. Thank you for a very fine statement.

What is the grade of these imports in quality compared to what we are mining in the United States?

Mr. CLOONAN. For metallurgical fluorspar, which is used in the steel industry, the purchase specification is 85 percent calcium fluorspar and 5 percent silica. For the acid grade which is used to manufacture aluminum, ninety-eight and a half and about 1 percent silica or impurity.

The CHAIRMAN. How would that compare with your own that you are producing?

Mr. CLOONAN. Well, it compares favorably. It is about the same. It is mined and concentrated and it has to be cleaned in to those grades before it is marketable or can be used by the industry.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me see if I have this statement correct. Where you were talking about the percentage of increase where only 35 percent of our domestic fluorspar was shipped in from outside the United States in 1951, you said 70 percent.

Mr. CLOONAN. Seventy percent was imported in 1952, which shows the increase in imports.

The CHAIRMAN. But you did not show there what the increase was in the use of fluorspar in the United States. Did we increase the use of it any?

Mr. CLOONAN. The use was not very much higher.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, what you mean by higher, the consumption remained practically the same?

Mr. CLOONAN. The consumption remained practically the same.
The CHAIRMAN. So that makes that even worse?

Mr. CLOONAN. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. Then the next question I have was on page 5. You make a very interesting statement there, about the middle of page 5, or near the bottom, when you mention a railroad freight proposal. But you do not say whether it has been concluded or not, or whether they have decided to give them that rate.

Mr. CLOONAN. It says here the effective date is May 1, 1953.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you have that in there?

Mr. CLOONAN. It is on page 5.

The CHAIRMAN. It is not any proposal, then. That word should be railroad freight decrease or increase.

Mr. CLOONAN. It is a decrease; that is right.

The CHAIRMAN. Did any of your group appear in Washington?
Mr. CLOONAN. I think they did.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the result you got?

Mr. CLOONAN. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. Mexico is in bad shape financially, right? We tried to get some labor from down there and that is not the way they talked. We used to go 250 miles to pick them up and now they say we will have to go 900. We might have had a little reciprocity here if you had asked the Agricultural Committee.

Mr. CLOONAN. Apparently they put them to work down there.

The CHAIRMAN. They take them farther away from the line, so the airplanes can charge more. Then they say that is the agricultural people's fault. That is wonderful, isn't it? Well, we get into some funny situations.

This interests me. Let me ask another hard question. Could we produce enough fluorspar for our needs without any trouble?

Mr. CLOONAN. We certainly can.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you sure you have the supply?

Mr. CLOONAN. We have a tremendous reserve in the United States, in all the States that I have just mentioned. And I understand that in Montana just recently a reserve has been discovered which could take care of the entire requirements of the United States for the next 10 years.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think there is any use of saving this fluorspar in the United States for future use?

Mr. CLOONAN. No, I do not. I believe, as I stated here, some imports are necessary, but I believe that our own domestic mines should be kept in operation. I might say the industry is now on the ropes. With only 30 percent of the total market, this fluorspar is going to pile up.

Assuming that they have a cost of $20 to $25 a ton, every time they pile up a thousand tons, there is $25,000; and being a comparatively small industry, I doubt that they can go very far in stockpiling fluorspar at the properties.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know anything about the conditions under which the fluorspar is mined in the foreign countries?

Mr. CLOONAN. Very cheaply. As the gentleman pointed out, 93 cents day labor against our labor charge, practically similar to what is existing in the lead-zinc industry of $14 to $15 a day. As I stated in here, the cost of production in foreign countries has been denied. I might say even in the tariff investigation in 1928, of which I have a copy here, costs were denied at that time.

The CHAIRMAN. What do you mean by "denied"?

Mr. CLOONAN. That is, access to the cost records was denied.

The CHAIRMAN. What countries lead in the importation of fluorspar? What are the heavy importing countries?

Mr. CLOONAN. Well, there is Mexico, West Germany, Spain, Canada, and Italy.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that the order?

Mr. CLOONAN. That is the order of prominence, practically.

The CHAIRMAN. I haven't any other questions. Thank you for a very, very excellent statement. We will try and look into this matter. Mr. CLOONAN. Mr. Chairman, we would like to have this material incorporated into the record of the proceedings.

The CHAIRMAN. It will be incorporated. Everything that we do will be in the record unless we otherwise indicate.

Mr. CLOONAN. Mr. Chairman, may I make another statement? Upon further analysis of it, we believe that the Simpson bill, with its provisions probably carried over to the fluorspar industry, might, or we should say would, greatly increase the standing of the domestic producer.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask this: It is not in the Simpson bill now at the present time?

Mr. CLOON AN. No. It should be included.

The CHAIRMAN. That will be a job for you boys to see is done. You understand we are not a legislative committee at all. We are just a

research committee, you might say, for all the Members of Congress. That is really our job.

Mr. CLOONAN. I assure you of our support.

The CHAIRMAN. So that means that you have a job of your own to do, and you should certainly put some pressure on the group down there, or at least see that they understand what your problems are. The CHAIRMAN. We have also under fluorspar a Mr. Warner; is that correct?

Mr. Warner, you are the next speaker.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE A. WARNER, MANAGER, SHATTUCK-DENN MINING CORP., FLUORSPAR BRANCH, ALBUQUERQUE, N. MEX.

Mr. WARNER. May I read from some notes and present a statement some time later?

The CHAIRMAN. All right.

Mr. WARNER. My name is George Warner, manager of the ShattuckDenn Mining Corp., fluorspar branch, Albuquerque, N. Mex.

What has been said here on lead and zinc, and what Mike has just mentioned on fluorspar, can naturally apply to fluorspar. I don't see any reason why we should repeat why we are in such a predicament. The fact that you people are here is proof enough that we are all in the same boat.

What I did want to point out, though, is that apparently we are not alone in this thing. We are talking about our mining industry here in the United States. I would like to read a little comment made in Belgium by a group of glass producers in Belgium. I summarized a lot of their comments. Every place where it says or mentions glass or glass products, we could apply mining. We could say any metal at all. If you will bear with me, I will just read the summary.

This conference was held in Brussels and was similar to the one we are having here today only it was the glass producers.

The CHAIRMAN. When?

Mr. WARNER. The date, I am sorry, I don't have. But I have the note that is a special report to the American Glass Review dated April 11. I have copied this thing down and summarized it here.

I wrote this letter to Charles Willis in Phoenix. You will meet with him next week. I said:

The recent gripe made by the Belgian glass industry sounds just like one of our own small mine operators. The following quotations are from the Belgian tableware and crystal producers.

Please remember what I said, that any place I mention glass you can use any metal.

"No. 1, Belgian tableware crystal producers bitterly score government for sacrificing industry."

We have been cursing our Government agencies, too.

"Some factories are even closing."

Our mines are closing.

"Our exports are decreasing constantly because foreign countries are closing their markets to us while we are opening our home markets to our competitors." We are griping about the imports of lead into this country.

"The Belgian Government is to blame for this. It is neglecting our interests. It is sacrificing our medium- and small-sized industries. Reports state

that many small-size industries are forced to close due to a flood of manufactured articles coming into Belgium from France, Holland, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States. And while this is happening”

the report continues

"barriers of many kinds are being met by Belgium products when entering some of these countries."

The report continues:

"That several speakers discussed the question of support given by the authorities to some of the small industrial plants in France and Germany."

The griping small-business men declared:

"By means of a form of disguised dumping, Governments of France and Germany and Great Britain helped their exporters to get a footing on markets where Belgium products hitherto were well established."

Emphasis was made on the disguised dumping of foreign competitors. The glass industry stated that

"Exports of Belgium glass products have dropped from 100 in 1937 to 35 today." That is the proportion.

"Employment dropped from 10,000 of a few years ago to less than 3,000 today." This is in the glass industry.

Severe criticism was aimed at Germany and France. Agencies in those neighboring countries were making certain grants to exporters amounting to 30 percent of the export value. Belgium's small manufacturers accused their Government of favoring the heavy industries at the expense of the small outfits." There is a lot more, all in the same line of thinking.

"Even the Swedish manufacturers are griping against the communistic Hungarian Government. The Swedes are asking their Government to invoke an antidumping law against Hungarian products. Japan is invading the European markets with subsidized small articles."

These cries from other countries point up the fact that the small-business groups in the United States are not all alone in the problems of everyday existence. The problem is not small nor easily solved. Something, however, must be worked out in order to avoid another catastrophe similar to the Hitler era in Germany, Mussolini's eruption of Italy, Egypt's very recent overthrow of the decadent governing body, and the thing that is happening in South Africa today.

England decided that a socialized state was not the answer, and we here in America decided that our form of government badly needed a change. We wonder if the Russians are beginning to think that their theory of government is fatal.

I summed that up stating that before the 30th I would have some testimony for Congressman Hill in Phoenix. At least I would not be strictly silent.

Perhaps this thing is more or less of a coincidence, but I wanted to point it out because whatever your committee recommends to Congress, Congress is going to have a challenge to come up with something that will be as good if not better than what the Swedes and Japs and Belgians and French and all the other foreign countries are doing today, the same as we are, the same as your committee is doing. They are apparently going around discussing these things, getting some ideas, and that is a challenge.

I have one recommendation which I wanted to sum up, that we try to put on our statutes some type of antidumping law. One is proposed by Mr. Gross in H. R. 2949. This bill puts a little teeth in the obsolete antidumping law that we do have, in that it requires any suspected government to open up their records for investigation to

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