Senator BIBLE. You are an industry spokesman. You are an industry man. Do you feel that the industry itself is well united on the program that you presented this morning?

Mr. WILLISTON. I think it is becoming more and more united. I know that all of the minor metals are not coming back here and telling you what they want. They are perfectly willing to come and say, "This is the minimum we can get by with and we hope we will be able to get that." They are hurt too badly to fight among themselves any longer. Even the copper, lead and zinc industries who have been well enough off to afford the luxury of fighting among themselves no longer can enjoy that luxury.

I think you are finding that they are more and more united all the the time.

Senator BIBLE. Do you believe that some of these vast mining companies that have tremendous foreign holdings are willing to recognize the priority of treatment on American production?

Mr. WILLISTON. I think they are. It is rather easy to see where a company with extensive foreign holdings might be inclined to favor their foreign holdings a little bit but, when they realize that the tremendous cost of closing domestic mines would far more than siphon off any profits from their foreign things, it is just a case of dollars and cents. They have to keep domestic mines going as well as their foreign mines.

Senator BIBLE. Has this theory espoused in the Governors' resolution of a certain percentage of the domestic market being kept for the domestic producer been explored with the major producers in metals? Mr. WILLISTON. No, but I would not contemplate that there would be anything other than an equitable answer to it.

We have copper production in this country and there is copper production abroad. A proper balance between the two should be quite satisfactory. I do not think that there is going to be too much trouble in working out something like that as long as the price of copper is down between 20 and 25 cents a pound. They have no choice but to go along.

Senator BIBLE. Do you believe the same thing is true of the lead and zinc industry?

Mr. WILLISTON. Well, there are a great many more members in the lead and zinc industry than in the copper industry and there are some very, very rugged individualists. I doubt if you would ever get unanimous consent to anything in the lead and zinc industry but I think you can find a vast preponderance of opinion.

Senator BIBLE. I think the lead and zinc industry are closer together than in many, many years.

Mr. WILLISTON. I think since about 1932 at the bottom of the depression. I imagine they would have been unified at that time. Senator BIBLE. Thank you.

Senator MALONE. Mr. Chairman?

Senator BIBLE. Yes.

Senator MALONE. As a matter of fact, there are none of them in business to amount to anything now.

Mr. WILLISTON. Yes, a good many of them are struggling along. They are not making money but it costs them more to shut down than to try to keep going. They are down to the four day week and the

partial stop-and-go operations and things like that but they are in that very difficult position.

Senator MALONE. So that the workingman cannot make a living either and the reason they are trying to hang on to their investment is to hope for some legislation to keep them going.

Mr. WILLISTON. That is right. Miners are optimists or they would have been out of the business long ago. I think they should have been, myself.

Senator MALONE. Mining is a disease and only for that we probably would not be in business at all. Now there is a combination that have worked together, this committee and the Senate Finance Committee, and I am a member of both. We made two reports on the Western Hemisphere on self-sufficiency, that we can be self-sufficient in the Western Hemisphere without any doubt. When that report was ready, Senate Report 1627 of the 83d Congress, I was a member of the Senate Finance Committee and in 1954 we were rearranging the tax bill so that I suggested on, I think, 26 metals, nearly all of the metals and minerals, that we raise the depletion allowance from 15 percent to 23 percent. You recall that.

Mr. WILLISTON. Yes, that was very hopeful.

Senator MALONE. The chairman was Senator George, of Georgia, who was very reasonable about it. He said, "Suppose we have our research staff get together with Malone's research staff"-as he put it"and bring back a report." There was no argument.

I think we could have included gold and silver and copper. No one was agitating it. It had not been suggested for many, many years. I pulled it out of a clear sky and thought it would help. That is an example of cooperation.

You say that we cannot initiate such legislation. We have a bill before us. It was assigned to this committee because it is a critical minerals bill. What it provides is to exactly return to the 1930 Tariff Act and to amend the 1930 Tariff Act and give the Tariff Commission authority over metals. We name them. It was assigned to this committee. A like bill that would be a regular tariff bill and include all products in the United States was assigned to the Senate Finance Committee. This bill is before us. That, Mr. Chairman, is the bill I would like to see considered along with any special legislation because it is all you would need and does exactly what you are suggesting, not that we give half of the market away or a third or any part of it but give Americans equal access to their own market at

least.

Mr. WILLISTON. It would be very nice if we could attain that objective.

Senator MALONE. You may have the copy and may have some suggestions.

Mr. WILLISTON. It would appear to me that unless the present Congress and the present administration takes some action to assure a truly adequate national minerals policy the kindest thing they could do would be to tell the industry the truth-to tell them frankly that nothing will be done, and advise them to struggle along as best they can or to get out of the United States while they are still solvent. They could then do as many of our larger manufacturers have done, put in plants abroad, produce with the advantages of cheap labor,

ship into the United States over the low-tariff barriers, and enjoy the United States market without the problems of United States costs and United States taxes. They should likewise tell the Western States that the future welfare of the West is of no importance to the East and that trade with foreign nations is more important than trade with the Western United States.

The present problems in the mining industry have been coming on over a period of at least 4 years, and the Western Governors Mining Advisory Council predicted the present situation as a probability in 1955 and as a certainty in April of 1957.

The situation in mining is not because of the present recessionit is, in my opinion, one of the causes of the present recession. Other industries in the United States now face the same problems that mining has had for some time. On the west coast, foreign autos, made by American companies abroad, are selling well while domestic sales languish; foreign steel has taken over 25 percent of the west coast market. Certain commodities, such as textiles, plywood, figs, nuts, tuna fish, machine tools, large electric generators, bicycles, sewing machines, optical instruments, business machines and many, many other manufactured products, are now beginning to feel what the mining industry has felt for several years.

With internal inflation and the cheap dollar for our citizens, with gold valued at $35 an ounce available to foreigners, we can expect more and more imports and less and less exports. Thus, you might say we have the alternative of increasing import controls, of revaluing gold (now voluntarily or later involuntarily) or having a good first-class depression.

I should correct that paper and strike out the words "now voluntarily," because I do not believe we can voluntarily reduce the amount of gold in the dollar.

Senator BIBLE. Thank you very much, Mr. Williston. I think that is a very able and hard-hitting and splendid statement of the status of the mining industry.

I think it points out some concrete suggestions. I think you are to be very greatly complimented on it. I think you have done a splendid job.

I would like to ask you two questions relative to this mine assessment problem. You are aware, I am sure, that there is a bill pending before this committee providing for the suspension of annual assessment work for this year?

Mr. WILLISTON. I am familiar with that bill.

Senator BIBLE. There is also another bill introduced by Senator Church to require the annual assessment work to run from August 15, which he has amended to run to October 1 rather than the present July 1. May I have your comment on both bills?

Mr. WILLISTON. In regard to the change in assessment date, it is now, of course, July 1. In many parts of the West where it is high, snow is not off by the 1st of July, and you cannot get in in time to get your assessment work done. I think that the idea of a postponing in the year is a very good one. Actually, personally, I feel his August 15 date was better than his October 1 date.

Many mining companies double up on their assessment work. In other words, they will go in in the last month prior to the date and get 1 year's assessment in and then, without taking their equipment or

their men out, stay over the termination date and do it again. They get more work for their money and get more assessment work for the necessary dollars expended. It is a much more efficient way of doing it. With the July date you cannot always do it. With the August 15 date there is no doubt that you could, August 15 or September 1. When you get to the October 1 date you can get in the part before but are you sure that you will be able to work through the 1st of November?

If I could make a suggestion on that I would say change the date to either August 15 or September 1 rather than all the way to October 1. Senator BIBLE. You think September 1 is a preferable date to either August 15 or October 1?

Mr. WILLISTON. I personally would feel so and I think most operators would. I cannot commit anyone else.

Senator BIBLE. I am just soliciting your views as an active operator. What is your thinking as to a moratorium on assessment?

Mr. WILLISTON. If this recession that we are running into is a depression and not a recession which it may well be, then I think that there is every good reasonable reason for a moratorium on assessment work but there is one drawback to the previous moratoriums we have had in the past. They were granted in times of an emergency, you might say, a serious decline, a serious reason for it, and then they were continued after the thing was over year after year. That I am opposed to. I am very much opposed to that.

If this is a serious situation then I would say, yes.

Senator BIBLE. I take it from everything we have heard in the last week that at least miningwise it is a serious situation.

Mr. WILLISTON. Yes, but I would regret immeasurably to see a habit of continuing these moratoriums because this is one of the things that happens. Speculators will come in knowing they do not have to do the assessment work and take up big blocks of claims and tie them up and nobody else can do any prospecting and they won't do anything on them.

The other point is that if it goes on for 5 or 6 years as in the past, you no longer can find the owner of the claims if you ever do want to do business with the owner. He may have changed his address a half dozen times. You have no particular record of him and it makes it almost impossible for a legitimate mining company to go in and develop the claims they may have.

There was a suggestion this morning that maybe a limitation on the number of claims would be advisable.

Senator BIBLE. That has been suggested.

Mr. WILLISTON. That would cut out the speculative angle and be helpful and still protect the true small miner.

Senator BIBLE. I introduced a bill and it was with the thought in mind of helping the small miner who is having particular difficulties right now. I am rather inclined to think that there might be some realistic limit put on of 10 or 20 claims.

I got the impression from Senator Bartlett that he felt that a limitation of five claims was too small a limitation. That was a suggestion made.

Would you have any suggestion as to the number of claims that should be exempt?

Mr. WILLISTON. I would say that the limitation should be as low as Senator Bartlett would consider covered his own problem.

Senator BIBLE. Something in the neighborhood of 10 or 20 claims. Mr. WILLISTON. If he would say 10 to 20, I would certainly go for 10 or 15. I would hate to see it go as high or much higher than 20. There was one thing that the senior Senator from Wyoming spoke of this morning: That was that sugar quota plan. The wording of the Governors' recommendation is broad enough so that it covers that particular plan and for any metal which is produced in this country at rates of 40 percent or lower there is no doubt that that plan would be effective. When you get above 50 percent it is much more difficult to make it an operative procedure. It might be used there but I could definitely recommend it for anything below 50 percent. I doubt if much could be worked out to hold above 50 percent but it is a very excellent suggestion.

The thought that has been suggested in the past that it would be tariff receipts allocated to help the particular metal: This is a quota plus tariff receipts actually and is even stronger than the other program.

There is one thing I have here which Mr. Dole did not introduce although it is a letter to him which I thought might interest the committee. It is from the United States Bureau of Mines and it states that the metallic mineral production in the 11 Western States was valued at $977 million in 1957 compared with $1,300 million in 1956. Now, this is a 25 percent decline in metallic production in the Western States. Overall in the United States there was only an 11 percent decline so that all of the drop was in the Western States while the Eastern States increased somewhat. Now, with a 25 percent decline for the overall year of 1957 prices in the mining industry declining rapidly during the year and if it averaged up at a 25 percent decline, my personal feeling is that near the end of the year it was probably much closer to a 3313 percent decline, so we are starting the year 1958 down 33 percent and still going so that it may well be that before the end of the year we will get to the 50 percent or pass the 50 percent. Senator BIBLE. May I ask one further question? I know of your interest in mercury. Has there been testimony in this hearing concerning mercury?

Mr. REDWINE. Yes.

Senator BIBLE. Is there any need of amplifying that? Has it been adequately covered?

Mr. WILLISTON. I think it has been very adequately covered. Mr. Hyde Lewis, president of the largest and oldest producer in the country, testified yesterday.

Mr. REDWINE. That is correct.

Senator BIBLE. Senator Malone, I ask you to preside. I am running 30 minutes late on another commitment that I had. I think we have one more witness. This hearing will be recessed rather than adjourned because it will not be completed today. The record will be kept open. I do not think we will have any further recessed hearing until after Easter vacation. I understand the Secretary is to come on April 28. Would you mind proceeding along that line? You probably have some questions of Mr. Williston.

Mr. WILLISTON. Thank you ever so much, Senator.