tion. The best interests of consumers and of producers will be met by attaining price stability in this industry. The radical swings in prices that have been generated in past cycles by surpluses and shortages have damaged the interests of all who are concerned with a healthy lead and zinc industry.

Some of you may have seen the recent publication by "Resources for the Future," devoted to an analysis of the adequacy of available land, water, energy, and nonfuel minerals to support our economy in the next 40 years. Or you may have noticed a series of charts from this book which the Chase Manhattan Bank reproduced in its bimonthly business brief for May and June. These serious studies estimate consumption of lead and zinc in the United States will rise rapidly during the next 25 years. However, when you realize that 10 to 20 years are likely to elapse between initial exploration proposals and the start of production, you will understand the concern of my Department over complacency with reference to lead and zinc reserves.

Members of the committee are undoubtedly aware that the financial risk sharing under the Defense Minerals Exploration Administration, which was responsible in large part for the new lead discoveries in southeast Missouri and the zinc discoveries in Tennessee, is no longer available to the lead and zinc industries. This program was replaced a few years ago by a program administered by the Office of Minerals Exploration. A congressional mandate has removed lead and zinc from the list of minerals eligible for assistance.

I would hope this committee would give serious attention to the whole problem of the Government's role in encouraging exploration. It is not a simple matter of enacting some specific piece of legislation directed toward lead and zinc or other commodity, or even directed at the general subject of exploration.

We need to assess whether our whole program of mapping, both topographic and geologic, should not be speeded up. We need to know whether our research in the nature of ore deposition should not be strengthened. The same goes for our research in devising and applying new techniques and instruments for revealing the presence of ore beneath the earth's surface. We must give much more serious thought to revisions in our mining laws which would encourage the use of these newer techniques and instruments, and to existing provisions of our tax laws relating to the amount of exploration costs that may be treated as operating expenses.

In other words, Mr. Chairman, what I am saying is that over the years the extent to which we can make the mineral resources of the Nation continue to contribute to the economic advancement and welfare of its people will depend in no small part upon the ability of our prospectors to locate valuable new ore deposits-deposits not now known and deposits which are hidden beneath the earth's surface, and for that matter in the ocean, on the ocean floor. That the Government should play its proper role in this endeavor is a challenge to both the Congress and the executive.

Another concern of Government with reference to mining which is especially pertinent to lead and zinc is the interrelationship of mining with other parts of the economy. In the early days of the country we became accustomed to abandoned mining camps-to ghost cities.

Today when a mining district closes down or substantially restricts its operation, a whole region of the country may be affected. A whole system of transportation may disappear because of the decline in ore cargo. Schools, hospitals, community governments may be jeopardized. The closing of an aluminum potline may affect the entire Bonneville marketing plan.

We have been, in Interior, attempting to give greater attention to such economic impacts of the rapid changes taking place in mining. In cooperation with other agencies of the Government and with local and State officials we have been giving much time to this problem.

In this connection we are asking the President to consider requesting the Tariff Commission to update its continuing study of lead and zinc under the provisions of paragraph 332 of the Tariff Act of 1930. Previous studies by the Commission have been most helpful, but they do not give us much insight into the economic impact upon communities and regions of developments in lead and zinc mining.

Should the President make such request, we should hope to obtain a fresh and impartial assessment of factors currently affecting the industry, including the extent of unemployment among lead-zinc miners; the effect upon the economies of districts where lead-zinc mines have closed; the impact of import restrictions upon the economies of friendly nations; and other pertinent and current information that would help us in determining what long-range programs ought to be undertaken in these communities and in the industry as a whole.

Mr. Chairman, in my statement I have tried to cover very broadly the developments affecting lead and zinc. I have tried to show that major changes have taken place since 1955-56, that substantial segments of the industry have strengthened and improved their positions, that a dynamic program of research to develop new uses has been set up by the industry, and that conditions at the moment are much more promising. We have expressed concern lest we allow our exploration to lag, and we have indicated that we want to assess more completely the economic impact upon regional economies of the rapidly changing conditions affecting lead and zinc mining.

We have summarized pertinent data which are available to the committee members. If I or members of my staff can answer questions the committee may have, we shall be pleased to do so.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, that concludes my prepared statement. Mr. EDMONDSON. Mr. Kelly, I understand there is another meeting you want to attend and then come back?

Mr. KELLY. If I may.

Mr. ASPINALL. Mr. Chairman, I would like to know how long it will

take.

Mr. KELLY. I will have to return to the Interior Building and spend about 10 minutes with this group and then return here.

Mr. ASPINALL. Can you make it in 30 minutes?

Mr. KELLY. I hope so.

Mr. EDMONDSON. Our distinguished colleague from Wisconsin, who is a very stout defender and supporter of the domestic mining industry, is here and I would like to call on him at this time, Congressman Vernon W. Thomson of Wisconsin.

STATEMENT OF HON. VERNON W. THOMSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WISCONSIN

Mr. THOMSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I would like to briefly repeat what I have been telling this committee since I came to Congress.

Mr. ASPINALL. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman does not need to repeat it. We remember what he has told us.

Mr. THOMSON. I remember last time, when I began by saying this had been a problem in Wisconsin since the days of the Black Hawk Wars and that when Abraham Lincoln was a member of the militia he was using the lead produced in that part of the country, the chairman of the full committee reminded me he had heard that story before. Mr. EDMONDSON. May I suggest to the gentleman that if he concentrates some of his eloquence on his colleague, Mr. Byrnes, on the Ways and Means Committee, we may get somewhere.

Mr. THOMSON. I will do that.

I was interested in the statement just made by the Secretary about the shortsighted policy of the industry in pursuing explorations.

I have two major companies that produce lead and zinc in southwestern Wisconsin and I have recently heard from both of them. One, under date of June 10, said they had been spending for the last 10 years $75,000 a year for drilling and exploration, but they have cut this back this year to $20,000 because the outlook for the industry is not good. And the other company, who has quite large holdings in the area that I represent in Wisconsin, and who had been drilling and exploring, and had planned this year to build a 600-ton-per-day ore-dressing mill has just advised me that due to the continued neglect of the lead-zinc mining industry by the Government, they have madea business judgment that will indefinitely suspend any further developments in Wisconsin. Plans for proceeding with the mill were abandoned. The potential in Wisconsin still remains good but no work will be done until something is done that will promise satisfactory economic results.

So the companies, after years of depressed prices, have reached the point where they think there will be no return and they have begun to cut back.

Mr. ASPINALL. Mr. Chairman, may I interrupt at this point?

The Governor is exactly right, as far as that is concerned, but on the other hand do you not understand the statement to which you referred to mean that the Government wants to give its services as far as overseeing, encouraging, or administering an exploration program is concerned, in order to give relief to the present operators? Is that what they are up to?

Mr. THOMSON. I hope they are but I did not gather that from the testimony I was able to hear sitting behind the witness.

Mr. ASPINALL. I do not know that I will agree with you. I think there is a fallacy in their position to encourage exploration. I think the Government would rather administer one of these exploration programs than get down to the meat of the problem. That is my criticism of their approach to this.

Mr. THOMSON. I think perhaps the gentleman is right. I do not know if you attended the meeting at the White House 2 years ago when:

there was an effort made to pass a bill in the House. Secretary Kelly was present, the President's representative was there, and it turned out to be a most unsatisfactory meeting. This was when they proposed to barter farm products for the purchase of lead and zinc for the stockpile, and I well remember the President's representative saying to one of the members in attendance:

Please do not reveal this proposal because it has not been made public at this point.

And the member said:

You don't need to worry. that program than you are.

I am not any more anxious to be associated with

So while the Congress did act it was of little assistance, I think, to the industry. Everyone is struggling to see that something basic is done to protect not only the industry but the public welfare in this country, to see that these mines and the skills are ready and available if and when needed, to see that we do not have a wartime inflated price but that we will provide jobs for this industry in this country and that the discrepancy between wages paid in this country and in other countries can be adjusted. It is my judgment that a country that is able to provide $100 billion for foreign aid in 20 years can certainly find the implements and the money to stabilize an industry that is so vital to this country in times of peace and war.

Mr. EDMONDSON. The gentleman is one of the sponsors of legislation on this subject?

Mr. THOMSON. That is right.

Mr. EDMONDSON. H.R. 6349 I think is the bill the gentleman from Wisconsin has introduced.

Mr. THOMSON. Wisconsin is or was the 10th State in the Union in the production of this metal. In the area that I represent the payrolls were running half a million dollars and several hundred people were employed. But exploration is slowing down. The mines are not being opened. And employment that has been traditional for generations for these people is going down and these people are losing their jobs. It is a more serious problem than most people realize.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to go on with my prepared statement if you have no other questions at this time.

Mr. EDMONDSON. Without objection, proceed in your own way. Mr. THOMSON. Mr. Chairman, it is common knowledge that the mining of lead and zinc is essential to our industrial potential. As well know is the fact that these commodities are, have been, and will be vital to any war effort of this country. The present is not so reassuring that we can afford to discount our domestic supplies of these metals and rely on foreign producers. At the moment, that is what we are doing. It is no longer profitable for lead and zinc properties to be developed in this country due to the ease with which foreign production can be imported into this country.

Wisconsin in 1961 was 10th in the production of lead and zinc. It has supplies of ore which, if properly developed, could create jobs, industrial properties, and plants, were it not for the continued import of these materials from foreign countries.

I realize the importance of foreign trade. But the differential here present-wages-favors foreign importation at the expense of

domestic production. We cannot ask our miners to accept lower wages. We have no control over wages paid abroad.

The bills now before Congress are an attempt to find some means to make the production of domestic lead and zinc profitable. They are to provide some protection to our domestic market. If we can find the laws and the money to support a foreign aid program of what is now approaching $100 billion since World War II, we should be able to find the laws and the money to support our own people. As it presently stands, our policy now supports foreign producers, not our own. I would like to change that, frankly, in the interests of my friends and constituents and the American economy.

In time of war the price of lead and zinc is 50 percent above what it brings in time of peace. In 1950-51, the average price was above 18 cents. It was less than 12 cents in recent years. We are not seeking wartime prices, only a slight raise which will insure us against the high price that war always makes us pay, which is to make sure that the skills and the men and the plants are there, ready when needed. In behalf of our domestic lead and zinc economy and the Nation's welfare, I do not thing this is too much to ask.

Mr. EDMONDSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Thomson.

Mr. ASPINALL. Mr. Thomson, according to statistics that have been submitted to us by the Secretary of Labor, there were 346 employed in lead and zinc mines in Wisconsin in 1956 and in 1961 there were 204. That has been reduced considerably since then.

Then, if we take these statistics a little further, there is a tendency here on the part of whoever worked up these statistics to show there have been certain Manpower Development and Training Act activities and certain Area Redevelopment Act activities in the various States to help alleviate this situation. Do you know of any real benefit that has come to your area because of any of the Manpower Development and Training Act activities or Area Redevelopment Act activities to meet particularly the needs of the unemployed miners?

Mr. THOMSON. There is absolutely none in that part of Wisconsin and to my knowledge there are only 12 or 14 people being trained in the whole district and they are being trained largely in the city of La Crosse, and I think the amount of metal being produced there will show the decline in production workers. Between 1956 and 1960 the production has dropped from 24,000 tons to 12,000 tons.

Mr. ASPINALL. As I understand the statistics that are used here, they take the question of unemployment in certain counties and they run all these unemployed together and they take these two programs and tend to refer them directly to the welfare of the unemployed lead and zinc miners. That is not true in my district.

Mr. THOMSON. It is not true in mine, either.

Mr. ASPINALL. That is what I wanted to show in the record.

Mr. EDMONDSON. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. THOMSON. Thank you.

Mr. EDMONDSON. Our next witness is Assistant Secretary of State. G. Griffith Johnson.

You have been kind enough to supply to us copies of your statement and also the memorandum with regard to the International Lead-Zinc

The statistics referred to are set forth in full at p. 179.