pile, which would have a terrific impact upon the metal marketing and production from here on out.

Mr. SAYLOR. What kind of an impact do you think this bill, or any one of these bills, is going to have on the mineral market, just not in this country, but in the world?

Mr. HARDY. This bill, Mr. Saylor, if I may speak, first, to the domestic aspect of it-we feel it will stabilize the domestic price of these minerals, thereby bringing back to the historical level production which the domestic mining industry can live on. The foreign aspect: We believe, in the long run, that it will also stabilize the world price of these metals and have

Mr. SAYLOR. How?

Mr. HARDY. Sir?

Mr. SAYLOR. How?

Mr. HARDY. We feel it will eliminate the violent fluctuations in the metal market.

Mr. SAYLOR. Did you ever study economics?

Mr. HARDY. Yes, sir.

Mr. SAYLOR. I think you had better go back and take a little look at your fundamentals.

Dr. MILLER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SAYLOR. Not at this time. I am going to try to find out what is going to happen when we stabilize the local market. Down in South America, we have got some countries that are shipping in some minerals to us. What is going to be the effect when we stabilize the local market under this bill and the local production under this bill? What is going to happen down there?

Dr. MILLER. Will the gentleman yield?

What

Mr. SAYLOR. I am going to try to find out what is going to happen when we stabilize the local market. Down in South America, we have got some countries that are shipping in some minerals to us. is going to be the effect when we stabilize the local market under this bill and the local production under this bill? What is going to happen down there?

Mr. HARDY. Mr. Saylor, this bill will insure production of the stabilization tonnages from the domestic mines. Now, that is going to leave a large segment of imports for foreign producers. By virtue of the fact that this bill will insure that production for domestic producers, we believe that the condition of oversupply which plagues us today will be corrected because the foreign producers will quite readily see that that segment of the market which falls within the stabilization tonnages will be assured to the domestic producers, sir.

Mr. SAYLOR. Correct.

Mr. HARDY. Thereby, we will effect a balance between supply and demand from foreign sources.

Mr. SAYLOR. And you say to those people who are producing in other countries that there is no market for you in this country, and they are the people who have said to us that they thought tariffs are terrible.

Mr. HARDY. Mr. Saylor, there is this for most people in the other countries: In the case of lead, we will continue, under normal times, to import in the neighborhood of 350,000 tons of lead, and in the

neighborhood of 500,000 tons of zinc, which are substantial amounts. And they are based on historic levels, sir.

Dr. MILLER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SAYLOR. Yes; I yield.

Dr. MILLER. I was just going to suggest to my good friend on my right that the Department has stated their position, and then offer this little bit of philosophy; that you and I would not have it any other way. We live in a country where honest, sincere men and women may, can, and do differ in their thinking as to what may happen when certain legislation is passed. You may not agree with the witness; I may not agree with him. We are all entitled to have our own opinion.

He has stated his opinion, and I am sure there is no thinking on the part of the gentleman from Pennsylvania to try to change his opinion or badger or be discourteous to the witness because he expressed an opinion that might be different from the gentleman's or from mine. I daresay there are many people in this room that would take the same position, and you and I would not have it any other way in America, because that is the way we hammer out on the anvil of debate great differences of opinion and try to abide by the will of the majority. May I suggest to the gentleman I am inclined to agree with some of this thinking, and some of it I do not agree with. Yet I want you to be a good friend and let this witness state his views without being too argumentative about it.

Thank you for yielding.

Mr. SAYLOR. Well, now, I might say to my good friend from Nebraska that I may even support this bill when it is through.

Dr. MILLER. Good.

Mr. SAYLOR. You notice I said "may." I just want to find out from the witness whether or not he has investigated all possibilities of what will happen, or whether or not this is something that somebody downtown thought up and came up here with and is asking us to buy without taking into cognizance all of the possible impact it may have on other programs that we have been asked to support.

Dr. MILLER. If the gentleman will further yield, I think, if you read the report

Mr. SAYLOR. I have read all of the reports. I am not impressed with them.

Dr. MILLER. They suggest taking out title II, which is chrome, and also the stockpile, as was suggested by Mr. Engle, the author of the bill, that they probably ought to be left out.

If we are going to get any mineral legislation at all, we have to compromise as much as we can within reason and move ahead.

Mr. SAYLOR. We might compromise, but I am trying to find out why we do not want the stockpile.

Mr. ROGERS. Will the gentleman yield to me?

Mr. SAYLOR. Yes.

Mr. ROGERS. I might suggest that we are limited on time and should hurry along.

Mr. SAYLOR. I might say to the chairman, if this matter is as important as we are being told it is, and we have the reports up here since April or May of this year, we could have had a hearing a lot earlier.

Mr. ROGERS. We have the time now, and it is rather limited, and I would suggest we confine ourselves to the matters at hand so we can

get through. I would like to ask all parties heard, including Members of Congress, some of whom are waiting, to be brief.

Mr. SAYLOR. Mr. Chairman, I do not think anything I have talked about has not anything to do with the bill, does it?

Mr. ROGERS. I do not know. I have listened all the time. I do not know what you are talking about now has to do with the bill.

Mr. SAYLOR. I suggest that is a slight diversion the gentleman brought about. That is all. I will reserve at the balance of my time. Mr. ROGERS. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Rutherford.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. No questions at this time, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ROGERS. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Dawson.

Mr. DAWSON. No questions, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ROGERS. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oregon, Mr. Ullman.

Mr. ULLMAN. I just have one, Mr. Chairman.

Would you not say, Mr. Hardy, that the critical international situation today does add to the importance of establishing a domestic mining program, because, if we should get into a shooting war, certainly, this is going to be of critical importance to our national defense?

Mr. HARDY. Certainly, Mr. Ullman; I could not agree with you more so. That is one of the main purposes, and I think Secretary Seaton alluded to that on July 3 when he was here, that certainly part of the reasoning for this program is the defense aspect.

Mr. ULLMAN. And within the last few days this has certainly been highlighted and accentuated to the point where it seems to me it is critical that we get out an adequate mineral program at this time.

Mr. HARDY. That is right, sir.

Mr. ULLMAN. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ROGERS. The gentleman from Wyoming, Mr. Thomson.

Mr. THOMSON. Mr. Chairman, I realize that we are limited on time here. I want to say, in utter frankness, that I find it a little hard to reconcile the administration position on other matters with this.

Also, I would like to ask just a couple of questions that I think need answering,

In the first place, these metals and minerals are of no value to us as a country for defense or otherwise unless they are fabricated. Would you not agree upon that?

Mr. HARDY. Yes, sir; I would. The ultimate use certainly is in a fabricated product.

Mr. THOMSON. And particularly with the type of attack we might have to look forward to in this time of ICBM's and so forth, it would seem to me that would be even more true.

How do you reconcile the failure to protect the people who make this into weapons and so forth, and yet to protect the raw material supply?

Mr. HARDY. The present situation, sir, is that the decline in economic activity has been suffered by the producers of the raw materials of this country more than the fabricators.

Mr. THOMSON. I am not going to argue that with you.

Mr. HARDY. Sir, I might add that in our area of responsibility in the natural resource field it falls within the raw material producers more than the fabricators.

Mr. THOMSON. Getting over to this stockpiling, you say that you are opposed to that. But is not the program with regard to copper in effect a stockpiling program?

Mr. HARDY. Mr. Thomson, I would like to distinguish again, I believe, the two types of stockpiling we are talking about here.

The original stockpiling was, as we say, for defense justification. The type of stockpiling we are talking about today is a buy-and-sell proposition, with the Government just being the middleman. And that is a rather new concept in stockpiling minerals, sir.

Mr. THOMSON. I would like to ask you this question: You have selected certain materials here for special attention-lead, zinc, copper?

Mr. HARDY. That is right, sir.

Mr. THOMSON. Are there not other materials that are competitive with that on the free market that can be used similarly and are involved in competition with them?

Mr. HARDY. Mr. Thomson, these are the base metals that have been the hardest hit and are the most important to the mining economy. Mr. THOMSON. I am thinking particularly with regard to aluminum, for example, that here is a material that this country in time of stress actually encouraged the expansion of and almost demanded it. I wonder if any consideration has been given to placing aluminum into this program.

I understand they are faced with a very serious problem of having about a third of the American capacity on standby or out of production, whereas the foreign imports are coming in in increasing volume. They are faced with the problem of Russia selling this under Government programs at 2 cents under world markets, whereas within the domestic confines of Russia the price is 139 percent of the world market, something like that.

I wonder, has any attention been given to that very important strategic product on which production was upped during World War II and upped during the Korean war at the request of the Government? Mr. HARDY. Mr. Thomson, here again the question arises as to the domestic mining industry.

As I recall the figures of last year, we produced somewhere around 10 percent of the aluminum from domestic mines. We feel the industry is certainly largely a fabricating industry in this country.

Mr. McCaskill here, my staff assistant, has studied the aluminum picture quite thoroughly.

While we have a great deal of sympathy for the aluminum producer, we do not feel it is in the mining area.

Perhaps you would be interested in hearing some remarks from Mr. McCaskill.

Mr. MCCASKILL. Congressman, the industry reports about a third of its capacity idle. Half of this idle capacity came into production relatively recently.

Imports of aluminum are not a major factor in the aluminum pic

ture.

Mr. SAYLOR. Are not what?

Mr. MCCASKILL. I beg your pardon?

Mr. SAYLOR. I did not get the last of that.

Mr. MCCASKILL. Imports of aluminum into this country are not an important part of the economic picture with regard to aluminum. Japanese aluminum on the West Coast has caused a little concern, and a small amount of aluminum entering the New York area.

Mr. THOMSON. With regard to that, now just what are the amounts of aluminum imports on an annual basis?

Mr. MCCASKILL. Net imports in 1957 were about 10 percent of our total supply.

Mr. THOMSON. We are importing somewhat in excess of 200,000 tons, are we not?

Mr. MCCASKILL. That is correct.

Mr. THOMSON. And our total domestic production today is some place in the neighborhood of a million two hundred thousand?

Mr. MCCASKILL. About a million four hundred thousand, or thereabouts. A million and a half.

Mr. THOMSON. At that rate at the present time, yes.

Mr. MCCASKILL. The industry reports a million three hundred fifty thousand, I believe.

Mr. THOMSON. To me that would be very significant if you had a quarter of a million imports as against a million and a half.

Mr. MCCASKILL. Of course, the bulk of that comes from Canada. Ninety-two percent of our imports of crude aluminum comes from Canada.

Mr. THOMSON. Did not the American Government just buy recently here about a million pounds of sheeting that came from Belgium, and the source material was Russian?

Mr. MCCASKILL. There is some evidence that some of the aluminum products that have come into the country may have been manufactured from aluminum originating in Russia. That is correct. Russia sold some 30,000 tons of aluminum in the Western European market last year.

There is no evidence that we have been able to locate of Russian aluminun imports coming into the United States, except for a minor bit of scrap that came from Poland last year.

It is true that the exports of Russian aluminum have caused some concern to the industry. As of the moment, they are, quantitywise, not sufficient to cause any trouble.

What is worrying the industry most is the ability of the Russians to move aluminum at lower prices if they so choose.

There have been attempts in Britain to invoke antidumping duties. So far that has not been successful.

Mr. THOMSON. In the interest of time, which I think is important here, it would seem to me that the aluminum industry, No. 1, has been found to be a very critical industry in time of national emergency, and that certain things have been requested of them to which they have responded and expanded capacity.

Mr. MCCASKILL. Let's not forget that two-thirds of their expansion they did on their own without Government encouragement. Mr. THOMSON. All right.

The second thing is this: At the present time they have a third, whatever figure we want to take, but a substantial amount of their