And this was before the defense activities reached the present tense stage.

It strikes me that if a plan like that could be worked out for industry generally that it would not be subject to the objection that you have raised that collective bargaining could not operate. It would not prevent wage increases; it would hold down the total wage cost; it would hold down price to the consumer; and on the other hand it should not be anything like so difficult of administration as the Baruch plan. Labor would receive consideration, and management also.

You may have already considered this plan, and if so and you wish to discuss it I would be glad to have your comments on it.

Mr. HETZEL. Miss Sumner, I would prefer to do it after more consideration. There are a lot of implications that I would want to think about.

Miss SUMNER. It would be perfectly satisfactory to me if you would do so and send me your opinion. I would rather not put it in the record before opportunity is given for discussion; and it is possible that we might do that later.

Mr. HETZEL. I will be glad to do that.

Miss SUMNER. I will appreciate it.

Mr. DEWEY. I would like to have a copy of it.

Mr. FORD. That seems to close the hearings for today.

Mr. HETZEL. You will not require me to return?

Mr. FORD. I do not think so.

(At 11:58 a. m., an adjournment was taken until 10 a. m., of the following day, Wednesday, October 8, 1941.)

PRICE-CONTROL BILL

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1941

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON BANKING AND CURRENCY,

Washington, D. C. The committee met at 10 a. m., Hon. Clyde Williams presiding. Members present were as follows: Messrs. Williams, Spence, Ford, Brown, Patman, Barry, Gore, Mills, Monroey, Lynch, Boggs, Hull, Crawford, Kean, Smith, Kunkel, and Rolph.

Mr. WILLIAMS. The committee will be in order.

We have with us as the first witness this morning Representative Bland, of Virginia. We will be glad to hear from you.

STATEMENT OF HON. S. 0. BLAND, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA

Mr. BLAND. Mr. Chairman, I am very grateful to you for this opportunity to appear before you in support of an amendment suggested by me in a letter that I wrote Chairman Steagall, which I shall ask to incorporate as a part of my remarks.

Having conducted volumes of hearings I appreciate and sympathize with you gentlemen in your deliberations and in your difficulties and troubles. I am going to try, at this time, just to touch on the high places and will conclude with a request that I may be permitted to supplement, revise, and extend my remarks by a statement in the record.

While I am appearing on behalf of the fisheries, I will supply for the record a statement of the fisheries industry generally whose representatives are here and who believe in the amendment which I propose, which is for the complete exclusion of the fisheries industry from the operation of this act. Generally it is called an allout exclusion. I do not like the expression "all out" because I do not know exactly just what it means, except to contemplate a complete exclusion from the operation of this bill.

The amendment I propose reads as follows:

The provisions of this act shall not apply with respect to any fish, shellfish, crustacea, sponges, seaweeds, or other aquatic form of animal and vegetable life and with respect to any product, byproduct or commodity of the fisheries. In order to save the time of the committee I am going to summarize generally my reasons for this exclusion.

First. Fishery products constitute substitutes for other food and the price is determined by competition with agricultural products so that it would be unfair to fix a minimum price for agricultural products and not fix a minimum for fishery products which follow the

agricultural range. If agriculture is fixed, then fishery products are limited thereby, though not included in the bill. If agriculture is not fixed, then it is unfair to attempt to control prices of the lower competitive product.

Second. Fish sold largely at auction and competition controls the price.

Third. Seventy-nine percent of the total number of vessels engaged in fishing, 72 percent of the total number of men engaged, and 71 percent of the total value of catch are the result of share or lay operation, so that regulation of price control becomes regulation of wages.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Let me interrupt you, Mr. Bland. I do not quite understand what you meant, and I would like you to elaborate on that if you will.

Mr. BLAND. I am going to elaborate on that more particularly, later. Mr. Chairman, and I will call attention to a table which is a part of the brief that I am filing. This table was gotten up by a Government agency, as I recall, as part of a rather exhaustive study made by the N. R. Á. This is one of the tables that is contained in their report.

TABLE 85.-Estimated proportions of all fishing vessels, of all vessel fishermen, and of the total value of the catch, of vessels using various modes of compensating their crews

! Includes piece-rate vessels owned or operated by salmon canneries in Alaska, which were not covered by original questionnaire. The proportions represented by piece-rate vessels in this table are, therefore, larger than those indicated in tables XXIV to XXVII.

Source: From Earnings of Fishermen and Fishing Craft, by John R. Arnold National Recovery Ad ministration Division of Review, 1936, tablejXXI, p. 56.

The above table, as you will note, is the estimated proportions of all fishing vessels of all vessel fishermen, and of the total value of the catch, of vessels using various modes of compensating their crews.

It gives the mode of compensation, percentage of total number of vessels, percent of total number of men, and the percent of total value of catch.

The mode of compensation, whereby these men will go out and are paid a share, wages, or on a piece-rate basis, and the total makes up the 100 percent.

Now the share is where the fishing is done on a share basis or lay, where the fishermen are paid their wages dependent upon the price at which the fish sell, the catch that is made. I think practically all of the operations of the Grand Banks are on that basis.

The share percentage of the total number of vessels, of those engaged in fishing, engaged on a share basis, is 79.

The percentage of the total number of men engaged in the fisheries that are paid on a share basis is 72.

The percentage of the total value of the catch is 74; that is out of a basis of 100 percent.

So that I say that it becomes an important consideration in the determination of the question of the exclusion of fisheries as to just what is being done when you undertake to include wages.

The fourth point I want to make is this: The operation of low tariffs in a few cases and freedom from duty in most instances operate to hold prices down.

Fifth. Uncontrollable, unstable, and uncertain factors in the production problem of fisheries products make price control unworkable. Sixth. Complete information is not available now or obtainable within the time required for price control.

Seventh. Wide area and character of trade are such as to make price control impracticable.

Eighth. The fishery industry is essential to national defense, fishing vessels are auxiliary to the Navy and important facilities for defense purposes, and should be encouraged.

In that connection may I say today that I noticed in the morning papers where the Navy went before Congress or a message has been sent down for smaller vessels for patrol duty along the coast, and they are the types of vessels that could be engaged in the fisheries. During the World War the vessels were taken off mine-sweeping service and for all sorts of purposes auxiliary to the Navy and which would not have been available if we had not had the fishing industry. In every war since the time of the Revolution such vessels have been engaged in similar service. That was true also in the last World War, and that is true today. According to the last statement I saw from the New England coast, about 14 trawlers had been acquired by the Navy, a variety of boats from a variety of areas because of their adaptability to defense purposes.

Ninth. Aids extended by foreign governments to sea-food industry operates unfavorably on the American industry.

By that I mean this: In a report that has been submitted to the Senate attention has been called to aides that have been given by every other nation under the sun except the United States to the fisheries industry, and in which the Government practically controls many of the vessels, as is the case of Japan.

Tenth. Uncertainty of labor and instability because of better prices paid in other industries increases uncertainty of labor factor and may drive fishery labor to other occupations. In other words, if fishermen are going to receive a better day's pay for a day's labor when working in the shipyards or when working in industrial plants they are not going to confine themselves to fisheries. That is one of the things that we have come up against already.

Mr. Chairman, that is a résumé of the principal points that I wish to urge, and I am not going to amplify it at too great a length because I sympathize with you, and I do want to say furthermore that when it comes to price control what I do not know about it would fill this room. A study of the fishing industry discloses a condition totally differ

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