OTHER WORK OF THE COMMISSION

Work on trade agreements.

Although the disruption of foreign trade wrought by the war, and preoccupation with the war effort, have resulted in a reduction of the Government's activity under this program, there has, nevertheless, been considerable activity in this neld. The trade-agreements program may receive new emphasis because of its close connection with the pledges made in the Atlantic Charter and in article VII of the Lend-Lease Agreements.

During the past year, trade agreements were entered into with Cuba, Peru, Uruguay, and Mexico and announcements were issued by the State Department of intention to undertake negotiations for trade agreements with Bolivia, Iceland, and Iran. Preparatory to each of these negotiations, the Tariff Commission made commodity trade analyses for the use of those concerned with the negotiations. A digest of trade data with respect to concessions made by the United States in the trade agreement concluded with Argentina in late 1941 was issued by the Commission. Similar digests with respect to Peru and Mexico are now being prepared. The customary assistance by the Commission to the Committee for Reciprocity Information continues. The Vice Chairman of the Commission serves as Chairman of the Committee.

Miscellaneous work.

Under section 22 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, as amended, the Commission conducted supplemental investigations with regard to cotton and wheat, and made recommendations to the President.

As a result of these investigations and recommendations, the President, by proclamation, relaxed existing quota restrictions on specified types of wheat and wheat flour, suspended import-quota restrictions on certain cotton and cotton waste, and also suspended country limitations within the global quota for imports of long-staple cotton.

One of the investigations made during the past year, in response to a Senate resolution, under the general powers of the Commission set forth in section 332 of the Tariff Act of 1930, resulted in a report to the Senate on the effect upon the red-cedar-shingle industry in the United States of the importation of these shingles from Canada.

Salaries and Expenses.

THE ESTIMATES

The estimates here submitted for the Commission's regular appropriation for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1944, is $853,000. That sum plus estimated transfers from other agencies indicated available funds totaling $1,135,625.

Personal services. Of the total amount allocated to salaries and expenses, $1,013,505 is estimated for personal services in the District of Columbia and $32,120 for personal services in the field. The total number of positions of the Commission and its staff in the District of Columbia and in the field service shown in these estimates, on the new man-year basis, is 338.7.

Other expenses.-The $90,000 remaining in the estimated appropriation for 1944 after the allocations mentioned above for salaries and expenses in the District of Columbia and in the field will be required for: (1) Operating expenses such as office supplies, communications service, costs of field investigations, including transportation and subsistence expenses, contract reporting of public hearings required by law, furniture, furnishings, equipment, and miscellaneous contingent expenses; and (2) field investigations including travel.

Printing and binding.

The estimate for printing and binding for the fiscal year 1943 ($10,000) is $5,000 less than that provided for this year. The Commission recognizes the need for the curtailment of expenditures in this field and will eliminate or defer all printed reports unless the need therefor is urgent. The Commission's continuing policy is to keep its published material as brief as the subject permits.

In conclusion, it will be noted from the estimates approved by the Budget Bureau, the rate of Commission expenditures necessitated by the demands upon it, especially by the demands from war agencies, is considerably in excess of the $853,000 requested. The Commission will, therefore, be able to maintain its present staff and its essential services only if the requested appropriation is authorized and that sum is supplemented by substantial reimbursements for services rendered to other Government agencies.

REIMBURSEMENT FOR SERVICES PERFORMED FOR OTHER AGENCIES, FISCAL YEAR 1943.

(See p. 296)

Mr. WOODRUM. In addition to your appropriation you have received during 1943 the following amounts for services for other agencies: From the Board of Economic Warfare, $100,000; from the Office of Price Administration, $118,000; reimbursement for services performed, $28,399, or a total of $246,399?

Mr. RYDER. Yes.

Mr. WOODRUM. You estimate $282,625 will be received from those activities for 1944. Is that correct?

Mr. RYDER. That is practically correct; yes.

GENERAL

STATEMENT ON DUTIES AND

ACTIVITIES OF COMMISSION

Mr. WOODRUM. Now, do you have a short general statement you would like to make?

Mr. RYDER. Yes; I have a short general statement.

We are asking for our appropriation in 1944 the amount recommended by the Budget-$853,000-which is approximately the same as our present appropriation.

We ask this primarily in order to enable us to continue to make what we think is an important contribution to the war effort. The great bulk of our present activities are related in one way or another to the war; most of them are undertaken at the specific request of war agencies. The work we do at the specific request of the war agencies involves principally special problems which our staff is particularly well qualified to solve because of its long experience in a highly specialized field and because of the kind of data we have assembled in the course of our regular work in the past.

The largest and most important segment of this work relates to specific commodities. For a quarter of a century the Congress and the Executive have relied upon the Tariff Commission for objective analyses of the facts bearing on the competitive position of domestic industries. In order to perform this function, the Commission has built up a highly trained and experienced staff of commodity experts and economists. It has also accumulated a vast reservoir of technical and trade information, much of which has been embodied in reports and in what we now call Summaries of United States and Foreign Production and Trade. These summaries which cover practically all commodities are a development from the Tariff Information Summaries originally prepared to assist the Congress in the tariff revisions of 1922 and 1930.

I may say, parenthetically, when I went to the Tariff Commission as an expert in 1919, the first job I was given was to help prepare the first edition of the Tariff Information Summaries for the then expected tariff revision which came, as a matter of fact, 2 years later.

These summaries, revised and expanded, form the basis of the Commission's work in connection with trade agreements. Still further changed and amplified in the light of war conditions, they have been widely used by the war agencies for the basic information they contain. Moreover, they supply the basic data for many of the special reports prepared at the direct request of these agencies, although the

data frequently must be supplemented and reanalyzed in order to satisfy special requests.

Thus, much of the war work being done by the Commission in connection with commodities is closely similar to, and in fact is based upon, the work it does pursuant to its regular functions. In addition to continuing its basic work of keeping up to date the Tariff Information Summaries, this work may be classified as follows:

1. We furnish the War Production Board certain regular statistical services regarding selected industries; for example, synthetic organic chemicals and vegetable fibers.

2. The Commission's experts are called upon daily by the primary war agencies to supply "spot" information, to do special short jobs, and to perform consultative services. Some of the most important of the services rendered by the Commission to the war agencies are of this type.

3. The Commission is frequently called upon to supply more or less extensive analyses or series of analyses of industrial and trade situations. Frequently these involve the close collaboration of commodity experts and the economists on the Commission's staff. A large amount of work of this type is done at the request of the primary war agencies, principally the War Department, the War Production Board, the Office of Price Administration, and the Board of Economic Warfare.

4. The Commission has recently undertaken, on its own initiative, the preparation of a series of studies on the effects of war changes in industries. These studies will be extremely helpful in meeting with industrial and trade problems arising during the war and in the transition of domestic industries from a wartime to a peacetime basis. They should also be of value in supplying information to enable the Congress to formulate post-war policies regarding foreign trade.

In general, it may be said that the war agencies call upon the Tariff Commission for assistance, particularly in the case of new and "knotty" problems with respect to which the training and experience of the Commission's staff of commodity experts and economists are peculiarly valuable.

Next to its commodity work the most extensive assistance the Commission is rendering to the war agencies is in investigations regarding costs of production. As you well know, the Commission concentrated a large part of its efforts for a decade or more on the administration of the flexible tariff provision whereby duties could be increased or decreased by the President in accordance with the differences in costs of production here and abroad as ascertained by the Tariff Commission. In carrying out this work, we built up a staff of accountants, commodity specialists, and economists experienced in solving problems connected with determining unit costs of production on specific products-at best, a very difficult and complex task. Because of this experience, the Commission has been called upon for cost work by the Office of Price Administration, in connection with price ceilings; by the Army, in connection with the renegotiation of our Army contracts; by the War Labor Board, in connection with problems of wage determination; and by the Petroleum Administrator's Office and the Department of Agriculture. To meet the demands. from all these sources, the Commission has been forced to expand its Accounting Division from 25 to about 55.

By the way, on a reimbursable basis, that expansion has taken place. The third way in which the Commission has been of assistance in the war effort has been the preparation of reports on specific foreign areas. These reports may be classified as follows:

1. Pursuant to its long-established policy, the Commission has continued to prepare reports on the trade and trade policies of foreign countries. The reports which it has recently completed and has now in preparation are of vital importance in connection with both the war and post-war periods. These include a report now at the Printing Office on German trade and trade policies from 1931 to 1939; a report on the trade and trade policies of British Empire countries since 1931, which is now in course of preparation; a report on the trade of Latin America as affected by war developments, which has just been begun.

The British Empire report will be of assistance in connection with lend-lease agreements and particularly in connection with the implementation of article VII of Lend-Lease Agreements. It should also be of great assistance to the Congress in fixing post-war trade policies. The Latin American report as it proceeds is being made available to the Inter-American Technical Economic Conference (called pursuant to resolution XXV adopted at the third meeting of the ministers of foreign affairs of the American Republics at Rio de Janeiro January 1942).

2. The Commission has projected a series of studies of the effect of war changes on the economy and trade of various areas such as British Malaya.

3. The Commission has been called upon by the War Department to furnish it highly confidential reports on bombing objectives in enemy countries.

Those I should say are industrial bombing objectives.

4. The War Department has also called upon us for reports showing the industrial installations in Latin-American countries which might have to be defended.

5. At the request of the War Department, the Commission has prepared for its use a series of factual surveys covering primary products and their manufactures and other information pertinent to prosecution of the war in certain strategic areas. Among the areas which we have already covered have been the Solomon Islands, which we completed a week or two before our invasion of the Solomon Islands, Algeria, Tunisia, India, and Ceylon.

Such is the work of the Tariff Commission at the present time. On this basis, we ask favorable consideration for our appropriation.

WORK DONE FOR WAR PRODUCTION BOARD

I might add that you will note from my remarks the importance of our commodity work and work for the War Production Board. In connection with that, Dr. Elliott here, who is Director of the Division of Stockpiling and Transportation for whom we have done a large amount of important work, has consented to explain to the commtitee the work we are doing for them, and its importance.

Mr. WOODRUM. All right, Dr. Elliott.

Dr. ELLIOTT. I do not want to take the time of the committee more than a few minutes. I am just here as a grateful witness for the work the Tariff Commission has done for my division.

Mr. WOODRUM. And what is your division?

Dr. ELLIOTT. The Division of Stockpiling and Transportation. Mr. WOODRUM. In what agency?

Dr. ELLIOTT. The War Production Board. We have an import program for the determination of what comes in.

Mr. RYDER. You are also chairman of the Shipping Priorities? Dr. ELLIOTT. Yes. We have a number of interchange committees in helping to work out those priority arrangements the Food Administrator, the Petroleum Administrator, the Administrator for Steel, the State Department, the B. E. W., the War Shipping Administration and the Office of Defense Transportation. In connection with our duties on imports particularly, they have been, I think, very helpful in saving shipping, to a very remarkable degree, by the elimination. of unnecessary imports and the concentration on the things that had to be used for the war.

Instead of expanding our own staff, we have fallen back on using existing agencies as far as we could, and have had more valuable assistance from the Tariff Commission in obtaining objective analyses on sources of supply and the availability of materials abroad, and the grades and specifications of materials, than I think we could have had from any other agency, although we have had help from others. The Commission has been very free in making available those studies on short notice and have helped us at all stages and made it unnecessary for us to build up another elaborate staff of our own, which I hope to avoid. In dealing with this problem in the last war, it took about four or five hundred people. I have had a handful, possibly thirty or forty, in the total set-up of that particular picture.

We have to handle also the public-purchasing program for imports from abroad, giving directives to the Board of Economic Warfare as to how much is to be bought for the war effort and, on the domestic front, to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the Commodity Credit Corporation. They are two agencies whose recommendations we have to review. The War Production Board has to say how much is to be bought for the stock pile, how much is to be kept in the stock pile, and so on. What purchases are made are more or less aimed at bringing in material that cannot be brought in by private purchase, under the price ceilings of the Office of Price Administration. And in all of those matters, we have had a great deal of very valuable assistance from the Tariff Commission.

We recently have had to assist the Office of Defense Transportation in applying preferential treatment to domestic products, and storage facilities. That involves the elimination of excessive hauling, and attempting to get the industry divisions to see to it that they move the materials they need for allocation on the shortest possible transportation routes. There, too, the Tariff Commission has been of extraordinary help to us.

I do not want to take your time, but there are some maps here, prepared by the Commission, showing the movement of industrial alcohol, where we think we can eliminate a great many tank cars and turn them over to the petroleum service, where they are very desperately needed now. You have all sorts of excessive cross-hauling, and the Commission is very well set up to study problems of that kind.