I know of that knew nothing about what he was talking about. And he acknowledged that to me in his testimony.

Mr. SEIBERT. But on fluorspar Ralp Van Alstein never found a mine in his life probably.

He knows fluorspar.

Senator MALONE. He doesn't know how you find mines, apparently. Mr. SEIBERT. Finding a mine is something that comes by a certain degree of luck too.

Senator MALONE. I agree with you there. But you have more luck when you have thousands of people out looking for them because if they find it, it is profit. Don't you think you would have a little more Irish luck with that situation?

Mr. SEIBERT. Of course, you have had a period, considerable activement, and publicity on the importance of fluorspar. You have had prospectors and sourdoughs going over almost every square mile of Kentucky and Illinois trying to find fluorspar and in Western States. Senator MALONE. Yes. We have had testimony from mighty fine theoretical men that all the ore has been found in the United States. Do you happen to know

Mr. SEIBERT. I haven't read one indication that all the ore has been found.

Senator MALONE. Well, do you happen to know that not over 10 percent of the area in the United States has been geologically mapped?

Mr. SEIBERT. No.

Senator MALONE. Well, that is good information for you to have. Mr. SEIBERT. I assume it is considerably more than 10 percent. Senator MALONE. Well, it has not.

Mr. SEIBERT. Well, Senator, do you realize that in 1951 the production of acid grade and domestic producers was 136,500, and last year it was 189,000?

Senator MALONE. I think that is very fine.

Mr. SEIBERT. That is a 30 or 40-percent increase.

Senator MALONE. That is very fine. But why are you coming down trying to keep them from continuing to increase their production if you can have a principle adopted that will give them the difference in the wages they pay and the cost of production in this country and in your country?

Mr. SEIBERT. It seems they are doing all right under present conditions.

Senator MALONE. They are not doing all right. And you know better than that. I have to tell you that for the record. Otherwise you wouldn't be here.

Mr. SEIBERT. I can't believe anyone-I can't believe any operation is going to continue year after year except with a great loss.

Senator MALONE. There are some in my State and North Carolina and other places that just can't quit mining because that is all they know. God knows it is a good thing for this country there are a few men left like that. But we are not developing any new ones on the principle we are using.

Let's come back to this thing in my opinion that makes sense in a record. You have testified that a duty or a tariff or a fixed price made the difference in effective wages and the cost of doing business

in this country and in the chief competing nation, estimated around $18 makes no difference in the price of steel, practically no difference, you can hardly find it.

You have testified to that, haven't you?

Mr. SEIBERT. Yes.

Senator MALONE. But you do say that you want this low tariff to continue; you don't want an increased price to make up the difference; and there is only one reason that I can see you are here, although you say you want to preserve the small amount that you say we have here now for a real emergency; but you want to sell it to us.

You want to continue to sell the amount of fluorspar on your part of that that we use in this country from Canada.

Do you own anything in Mexico?

Mr. SEIBERT. I own substantial reserves in Mexico.
Senator MALONE. What are the wage paid there?

Mr. SEIBERT. In the neighborhood of a dollar a day to ordinary labor.

Senator MALONE. You don't think we could compete with that, do you?

Mr. SEIBERT. No. And I don't think we can compete with the nature of the deposits you have in Mexico. You have high-grade deposits and

wide veins.

Senator MALONE. Do you have any objection to trying it on the basis of having a fixed price bar the duty or tariff represented in the wages and cost of doing business in Mexico and in this country?

As long as it doesn't make any difference in the cost of the end product?

What did you say the price of steel was?
Mr. SEIBERT. I guess $120 a ton.
Senator MALONE. $120 a ton?

And you object to it?

And it makes 10 cents out of $120.

Mr. SEIBERT. Well, I object on the ground that when we run out of fluorspar in this country we are going to pay many more dollars than 10 cents a ton.

Senator MALONE. You think our security might be threatened too? Mr. SEIBERT. I do.

Senator MALONE. Well, I see that didn't register.

Where is that 1627? I read you now from Mr. Morgenthau. You are repeating their testimony. And I just wondered then, and I do now, if you want to join Mr. White in the annals of history. Because 10 years from now you will find your testimony will amount to just about the same as Mr. White's.

Mr. SEIBERT. You know the testimony of Dr. Gilson of DuPont, do you?

Senator MALONE. In my opinion they joined him; yes.

Mr. SEIBERT. You know the testimony of the geologists of the Aluminum Co. of America?

Senator MALONE. Yes.

Mr. SEIBERT. And the Pennsylvania Salt, the biggest users of fluorspar in the country?

Senator MALONE. That is right. And they all want to get it at a low world price.

Mr. SEIBERT. Why would they go to foreign countries to locate reserves of ore if they thought they had enough in this country?

Senator MALONE. Because they can get it cheaper. I know that as a matter of fact.

Now then they have to have a tariff on their aluminum in order to stay in business, don't they? That is a finished product.

Mr. SEIBERT. I believe so.

Senator MALONE. Don't you know that?

Mr. SEIBERT. I believe so; yes, sir.

Senator MALONE. Well, we also financed Canada to the tune of about $50 million to build a plant up there, didn't we?

Mr. SEIBERT. I think so.

Senator MALONE. Which is competing now with our product. And they are here to get a tariff on it so they can stay in business. You know that, don't you?

Mr. SEIBERT. Yes.

Senator MALONE. I read you what Harry Dexter White has to say. Here is what the Secretary of the Treasury, then Mr. Morgenthau, sent to Mr. Truman:

I suggest consideration be given to a financial arrangement USSR provided with $10 billion credit for the purchase of reconsideration goods in the United States with provision to repayment to us

He goes on with the same table, with the same number of years, peat, manganese, tungsten, zinc, lead, chrome, mercury.

If he had thought of it, he would have had fluorspar in there without any question. It wasn't so important then:

The interest rate could be 2 percent amortized over a period of 35 years: schedule of repayment is attached. The Russians have more than adequate means to assure full repayment. There are 3 principal sources from which they can obtain the necessary amount of dollars.

It goes on to explain it. It is very nice:

Metals include manganese, tungsten, graphite, micachrome, mercury, iron ore, platinum and copper; peat, oils and oil cake, and other industrial raw materials.

It just takes the whole thing.

Wouldn't it have been very nice if you had given $10 million in 1945 to become absolutely dependent upon Russia and to save our very scarce raw materials. That would have been very fine-a very fine policy, would it not?

Mr. SEIBERT. Very questionable.

Senator MALONE. Well, I think it is questionable now, myself.
Mr. SEIBERT. Well, we are dealing in postmortems now, sir.
Senator MALONE. No. I am dealing with the present now.

Mr. SEIBERT. The latest present Government report on fluorspar reserves is 221⁄2 million tons.

Senator MALONE. That is right.

Mr. SEIBERT. That is the latest. We have got to deal with facts. You are assuming they may find another twenty or fifty million more. Senator MALONE. There is no question but what we will find it. Mr. SEIBERT. You have to deal with facts at the present time. What happens later-you can always change a tariff law 10 years from

now.

Senator MALONE. I don't think we can. Because this is what we had: Free trade in 1945, we got it in 1934. And in 1945 both of them are arguing that we still had nothing.

Now, Mr. Ickes wanted to do away with all depletion allowances. Don't you remember that?

Mr. SEIBERT. I recall reading it.

Senator MALONE. Of course. If he could have, then he would have run out of oil. Because you would have no gambling money, no wildcatters, no money to spend. So if you were able to carry out his policy of no depletion allowance, of no minerals or oils his forecast would probably have come through.

Mr. SEIBERT. But the prospecting and development of fluorspar is a whole lot different from drilling five and ten thousand-foot wells. Fluorspar in 9 out of 10 cases is on the surface.

Senator MALONE. Is it different from mining tungsten or any other metal?

Mr. SEIBERT. Tungsten is perhaps a more difficult mineral to prospect and develop than fluorspar.

Senator MALONE. You know what we did in tungsten when we made it profitable, don't you?

Mr. SEIBERT. I didn't get your question.

Senator MALONE. I say do you know what happened in tungsten when the 1953 Malone-Aspinall Purchase Act went into 2 years? Do you know how much we were producing annually?

Mr. SEIBERT. Well, perhaps if we go to stockpile fluorspar we might find

Senator MALONE. You don't need a stockpile. What you need is just something to make that difference as a principle, so that a man knows you know this as well as I do-probably better-you are in the business-I have done a lot of work for people like you-it takes you, doesn't it, 5 to 10 years to find a deposit of almost anything and properly prospect it, build a mine, get into production, and get any of your money back?

Mr. SEIBERT. Definitely.

I haven't declared a dividend on fluorspar in 25 years. I have been using my profits to plow back into my business.

Senator MALONE. Of course. So you are looking for more fluorspar. Mr. SEIBERT. I have all the fluorspar I want today.

Senator MALONE. But why did you get it? You were looking for it knowing you can make a profit. Do you think we wouldn't find some more metal in this country of the various kinds mentioned here by Mr. Harry Dexter White-now you are mentioning another one; you are joining him-that whatever you have at the moment, no matter what it is, you must save that and buy it from foreign sources. That is your testimony today?

Mr. SEIBERT. Correct.

Senator MALONE. Do you have any further statement to make for the record?

Mr. SEIBERT. Incidentally in my 25 years of experience I have seen acid grade consuming from 20,000 to 328,000 tons per annum. Senator MALONE. That is very fine. I congratulate you.

Mr. SEIBERT. And I am hopeful that within 5 or 10 years, it might double.

Senator MALONE. I hope so. I congratulate you.

I also congratulate you that you have been very effective in securing loans from the United States. You have been very effective in preventing us from-you and your people who are on the same side of this question-from continuing our free trade policies, so that our domestic production in 5,000 materials is very greatly jeopardized

now.

We are living on a war economy. If you will just look it over a little bit you will find that to be a fact. And if we stopped purchasing if our armed services stopped today from purchasing all materials, we wouldn't be in business in the United States in 60 days. Because we do not have our American markets. We have priced ourselves out of foreign markets.

The only way we can sell anything is to pay a subsidy on it like I explained to you about the wheat. And when the United States of America, the strongest nation in the world, built the highest standard of living in the world, has a principle or duty or tariff to make that difference in the wages and the cost of doing business here in the chief competing nations in 150 years and we have dissipated it in 24, I think that is a marvelous job.

I want to put in the record at this point, percentage distribution by countries in geographic areas, the world production of select critical metals and minerals in 1956, which I suppose is somewhat of a typical year.

This includes about 30 such materials. And I make it a part of the record simply to show the sources.

The table will be filed with the committee for reference purposes. Do you have anything further to add?

Mr. SEIBERT. No, sir, unless you have further questions.

Senator MALONE. Well, I certainly have no further questions, because I think your testimony is clear.

I would recommend for reading, though, again, Senate Report 1627 of the 83d Congress; and Senate Document 83 of the 84th Congress. Mr. SEIBERT. I have it right here, sir.

Senator MALONE. And if you find anything in those reports you don't believe to be true, I would appreciate a personal letter because they are my reports, after listening to about 75 engineers all over the United States, after visiting every country in the world.

Mr. SEIBERT. All right, sir.

Senator MALONE. And going through the mines.

Mr. SEIBERT. I am sure I will find some interesting reading.
Senator MALONE. I think you will.

Thank you very kindly.

Mr. SEIBERT. It was a pleasure, sir.

Senator MALONE. Will you give our good neighbors to the north my very best regards and tell them I think they are smarter than we are, and some time their dollar is likely to be worth a lot more than

ours.

It is worth more now.