Mr. HUSBAND. And by so doing further complicated our situation. The CHAIRMAN. Absolutely, and then their mills are placed at a disadvantage because of the fact that in their State they must pack their flour into 100 pounds, or multiples of 100-pound packages, and when they sell outside of the State they have to pack in different packages.

Mr. HUSBAND. Our friends in Arkansas have to carry stocks in 100, 50, 25, and 10, because they trade in Texas, and they have had to carry their own packages in addition to those that I have enumerated. The situation is extremely complicated.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee, I think, will be glad to hear from Mr. Hillard.

STATEMENT OF MR. T. J. HILLARD, WILKES-BARRE, PA.

Mr. HILLARD. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I did not expect to say a word, because Mr. Husband speaks the full text of our problem, but while he was correct with regard to the weights in Pennsylvania being 196, 98, 49, 24, we also have a State law which allows the package to be sold if it has the exact weight of the package, and that includes flour. The result is that the consumer in Pennsylvania to-day-you can use any word you want, but there is a very ugly word attached-is not getting what he thinks he is getting. For instance, the flour is sold to the retailer by the barrel, but he never buys the barrel. He buys it in full halves, quarters, and eighths, and there are a number of western mills shipping into the State-one started and the rest followed, and they are selling a package of flour stamped 24 pounds. That enabled those millers to make a reduction in the sale price of about 11 cents a barrel over competitors who are selling 241 and 49. The retailer, when he sells it, he sells the 24-pound package for the same price as he sells the 244-pound package. He sells 48 pounds at the same price he sells 49 pounds. The consumer is the loser, and when it comes to feed, they brand the sacks 98 and 90, and in some places 88 pounds of feed, and the customer goes to the store or the mill and asks for a bag of cracked corn or oats, whatever it is, and the storekeeper can make more profit by selling 92 pounds than he can by selling 100.

He gets a reduced price from the mill on the 92 pounds, but he gets the same price for the 92 pounds as he would get if he sold 100 pounds. You see there is 10 per cent difference in the 90-pound sack. To show how this works out, when we had the benefit of Mr. Hoover, as Mr. Husband refers to, there were even weights sold throughout the State, 100 pounds of feed for chicken feed and horse feed and cow feed. Inside of a year, after that ruling, it was five days after the armistice, the 90-pound sack came in, and it has been there ever since. We have succeeded in holding the 100-pound sack in our community, but that is an isolated place, and if this bill passes it will save the consumer in feed alone an enormous amount and also save him in flour. It is a great deal for the consumer and a great saving to him in the flour he pays for but does not get.

If you realize that in the last 25 or 30 years in my time the coal miners of the State who used to be entirely Irish have been replaced by the Slavish people, and they are mostly unable to read or write,

and they have been preyed upon, but they invite that, that they are so selfish now that any man who speaks English, they look upon him as one that is going to do them.

The CHAIRMAN. There are some other gentlemen here. I do not know if they are interested in the matter and want to be heard by the committee.

(Mr. T. H. Carroll, of the Federal Trade Commission, made a statement, which the chairman directd the reporter not to incorporate into the record.)

The CHAIRMAN. I should say, Mr. Carroll, that the committee would be glad to invite a representative here, and I would like to have this committee have the benefit of any recommendation of the Federal Trade Commission on this proposition.

Is there any other person who desires to be heard?

Mr. HUSBAND. If you are about to adjourn, may I suggest, in order to carry out the suggestion made by Mr. Jacobs, on behalf of the manufacturers of macaroni, on which I will speak for the wheat millers, as concurring in every instance where the phrase "flour, hominy, grits, etc.," is used, that the word "semolina" be inserted after the word "flour."

Mr. JACOBS. That is right.

Mr. HUSBAND. So as to carry semolina in with flour.

The CHAIRMAN. We will take that up when we have executive session.

Mr. HUSBAND. That will come in the record, and in that way come before you.

The CHAIRMAN. I think that is all the testimony to-day in this matter.

Mr. LOWERY. I guess the time for the members of the committee to speak will be when we are in executive session, but responding to what the gentleman from Secretary Hoover's department said, I do not know where I found it, but I wish every member of the committee might read something which impressed me very much from Mr. Hoover, of the large economic value of this move toward standardizing along these lines, and it will be the duty of everybody from a patriotic standpoint to cooperate for improving the economic situation and saving to the nation and industries everywhere.

Mr. HUSBAND. After listening to Mr. Colwell, I envy our friends in the brick business, that they were able to carry out what we are willing to do in our industry, reduce the number of packages, except that bricks have not been legislated, whereas flours and meals have. and we are helpless.

(Whereupon, at 11.30 o'clock a. m., the committee adjourned.)

COMMITTEE ON COINAGE, WEIGHTS, AND MEASURES,
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
Tuesday, January 29, 1924.

The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. Albert H. Vestal (chairman) presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, we will continue the hearings on H. R. 3241. The representatives of the Federal Trade Commission are here, and we will be glad to hear what they have to say on this subject.

Mr. CARROLL. Mr. Chairman. Doctor England has been assigned to give the facts with relation to the measure under consideration. The CHAIRMAN. All right. Will you please state your full name?

STATEMENT OF MR. WILLIAM H. ENGLAND, ASSISTANT CHIEF ACCOUNTANT, FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION.

Mr. ENGLAND. My name is William H. England.

The CHAIRMAN. And your connection with the commission? Mr. ENGLAND. I am assistant chief accountant of the Federal Trade Commission.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, the commission authorized its representatives to come here and tell you the principal facts in connection with an inquiry that the commission is now making in commercial flour milling.

Very soon after we began we found that this question of packages was one in which the milling industry were very much interested. As a matter of fact, as you know, the commission has itself been interested in it for some time; I think that was brought out at your former hearing.

We started out at the beginning and studied carefully all the hearings and got the facts that were developed there; and then to be sure that we had up-to-date information, we corresponded with State officials in every State of the Union, and in a great many cases we even went to different municipalities, chiefs of police, and different officers; because we were surprised to find that a great many of the States had a law, and the State officials did not know it; they did not have any idea about the sizes of packages of what was being sold in the State.

So far as the laws are concerned, one thing that has been developed is that practically all the States that have legislation on the subject have followed the pure food law, attempting to designate that if you sell flour or feed within the State, you must put all the contents on the package.

But we found that that law has not led to simplicity in the number of packages, but in a great many cases has increased the multiplicity of packages.

For example, we find that in one State they will allow them to sell any size package-and suppose a mill is operating in a State in which the 24-pound package is the legal weight: it ships over into another State; and they put 24 pounds in that package, and that adds just one more package to the number that has already been sold within that State.

We were surprised to find that there were 12 States, and the District of Columbia, that have no legal requirements, either by statute or by regulation, as to the size of the package that is shipped into their territory. Provided, in some cases, it has the weight stamped on it, it is legal.

Now, the States that have established weights of packages, either by law or regulation, are divided as follows:

There are 13 that designate what the weight of the barrel must be; nothing smaller than a barrel is provided for, although a very small quantity of flour is sold in the barrel packages. Then there are 19 States that designate from two to five packages smaller

than the barrel, mostly the half barrel, the quarter barrel, the sixteenth and the thirty-second.

Now, we find at the present time, as near as we can learn, that there are about 35 or 40 different size packages, all but three of which are smaller than 100 pounds.

The barrel in Texas allows 200 pounds, and 140 pounds for the export size: and then all the other sizes from 98 pounds on down. During the war the Food Administration at one time attempted to cut down the number of packages, but shortly after that the armistice came on, and the regulations were not put into effect, largely on account of the fact that they were asking the public to stop using so much flour and use corn meal.

But it appears from that effort, and also because of the fact that the millers have waked up to the fact that the multiplicity of packages was a nuisance, and increased not only their expense but the size of their inventory; that the number of sizes of packages has been cut down one-half. We have had reports from 12 or 13 millers, showing that where they formerly had about 75 different packages, the same companies now use about 35 different packages.

Now, the significant thing is that, while there are a large number of packages, there are only a few sizes. In other words, the half barrel of 96 or 98 pounds is practically the same size; the quarter barrel of 48 or 49 pounds is practically the same; then going on down, the 24 and the 243; the 12 and the 124; the 6 and the 6 pounds are practically the same.

A great many millers have called attention to the fact that, in the retailing of flour, certain dealers will buy only 24-pound sacks where both 24 and 244-pound sacks are permissible. Another dealer will sell 244-pound sacks. They sell it as a sack of flour. The general public does not stop to see what the exact contents of that package is. But you see when that gets up to a barrel, it makes a difference of 4 pounds-192 pounds instead of 196. The extreme number of packages in a single State seems to be in Iowa. Either by law or by custom they allow there about 15 different sized packages. New York State has 15; Indiana and New Jersey, 13 each; Colorado and Texas have 12 each; and then on down. Some have only 4 or 5.

But the interesting thing in that connection was that we found that, dividing the country into milling districts, taking the Pacific Northwest, what is commonly called the Northwestern district, in the vicinity of Minneapolis, and the Southwestern district in the vicinity of Kansas City, and then the southeastern part of the United States and the northeastern part of the United States-we found that the statistics of the 80 millers who reported to us show that from 92 to 97 per cent of all the flour that they sold was in five sizes of packages-that is, in exactly five sizes: Either in the half-barrel, the quarter-barrel, the eighth, the sixteenth, or the thirty-second-pound size which would be five sizes. As a matter of fact, you have them all multiplied. They sell as many as 35 packages, whereas if they had only five packages they could have done 97 per cent of their

business with those.

The largest number of packages are in sections like the Pacific Coast, where you get that decimal fraction, and in the vicinity of New York and New Jersey, where you get down to the very small

package for the trade that when it buys flour, buys in very small packages of two or three pounds.

Fifteen packages would cover approximately these companies' sales. Now, those 15 packages in turn were the barrel, the halfbarrel, the quarter-barrel, the eighth-barrel, the sixteenth, the thirtysecond, or approximately those sizes. The barrel was in 200 pounds or 196. The half-barrel was either 100, 98, or 96. Then you get down to the next size. It was 48 or 49 pounds, then it was 24 or 241, then it was 12 or 121, and then it was 6 or 64 pounds, with some packages of 5 and 10 pounds.

The flour millers call attention to the fact that, oftentimes, they are subject to needless expense in the distribution, by having a shipment going to the wrong State. They ship half a carload of flour to be delivered in one State and another half a carload to be delivered in another State, and a mistake is made and they deliver the 24-pound package in the State that requires 244-pound packages, and vice versa.

In Iowa, as I mentioned a while ago, there were 16 different sized packages. These were the barrel, the 140-pound package, the 100-pound package, the 98-pound package, the 50-pound package, the 49-pound, the 48-pound, the 25-pound, the 24-pound, the 24pound, the 121-pound, the 12-pound, the 10-pound, the 6-pound, the 5-pound, and the 34-pound.

In Indiana they had the 196-pound package, 140-pound, 98, 49, 48, 24, 24, 20, 121, 12, 10, 6, and 5.

Flour millers have called attention to the fact that in neighboring States even the small miller who does not distribute over a wide territory often finds that he has to have quite a number of packages, due to the fact that the State that his mill is located in and the next neighboring States have different regulations.

For instance, take Oregon and Idaho. Oregon provides for a 241-pound package, the exact fraction. Idaho, on the other hand, has the 24-pound package.

The same is true with the 12-pound and the 124-pound, Oregon having the 124-pound and Idaho having just the 12-pound package. In South Dakota and Nebraska the same situation exists, two neighboring States, in which the same millers do business in both. North Carolina and Virginia have the same sized packages; but when a miller ships over into West Virginia, he must have a different sized package.

The same is true in California and Nevada. And I might go ahead and multiply the instances.

So far as the feed proposition is concerned, it is quite similar. I think, Mr. Chairman, your committee is familiar with most of the facts in regard to this situation, and I do not think there is anything else that I can recall right now that would be of particular interest to the committee.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to ask you a question relative to the decimal weight bill. I wish you would tell the committee if the Federal Trade Commission has studied that question, and what is their judgment about it.

Mr. ENGLAND. The Federal Trade Commission has studied the general question, and at the present time the present bill has been studied with the others, and we are working on the report.