648

’ AGRICULTURAL RELIEF

Mr. ‘WaLLace. I am trying to talk about economics and keep
away from politics.

Mr. KincHELOE. Of course a ‘‘nonpartisan’ fellow like Mr.
Ketcham would accuse us fellows of playing politics. But I want to
get the condition of the country as it is. Is it not a fact that there
have been more commercial failures in the last six months in this
country than there have been in many years?

Mr. Warrace. 1 have read of such. I have kept track more of
the workingmen out of employment than I have of commercial
failures, because one affects the other. There is no doubt but there
is bound to be a good many more commercial failures when men are
unemployed.

Mr. KincHELOE. There have been about 3.500 bank failures in the
last seven years. :

Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir—I can not say the exact number, but I
know there have been more than general.

Mr. KincHELOE. More than general? In the eight years prior to
1920 there were only 864 bank failures in the whole time.

Mr. Warrace. I have not those statistics.

Mr. KincueLoe. Well, I know about that. What are the con-
ditions of the laboring man in the highly protected industries of this
country?

Mr. Warrace. Well, we can consider the textile industry as a
protected industry.

Mr. KincueLoE. That is the highest one of any of them.

Mr. Warrace. To begin with, they are miserably underpaid;
certainly, they are unemployed to about 50 per cent.

Mr. KincaELoE. Then you do not subscribe to the statement that
the protective tariff raises the standard of American living in the
United States?

Mr. WaLLace. Of course, you know what Henry Clay said about
protection—*It is a local issue.” That is true. If 1 could have my
particular industry protected and all the others have free trade I
would be sitting pretty.

Mr. KincHELOE. The point I am getting at is, you do not think
that the tariff on the textiles of this country, which is the highest of
any in the Fordney-McCumber tariff bill, has done much in raising
the wages of the laboring people who work in it, do you?

Mr. WALLACE. It has not had that effect in the textile industry;
it has not raised them. But, as I stated before, we have come to the
point where we export 15 per cent of our textiles, and our wages like
the farmer’s returns, is predicated on that 15 per cent that has to be
exported in competition with the world.

Mr. KinceeELOE. I was getting down to that. That is very
interesting. I did not know that. If I understood, then, the manu-
facturers of textiles, which is, I say, the highest protected industry
under the Fordney-McCumber tariff bill, when they come to fix the
wages for their laborers that work in these institutions, base those
wages upon the price they get for their surplus abroad.

Mr. WaLrace. That is apparent to me.

Mr. KinceELOE. How many thousand coal miners are out of
employment in the United States, do you know?

Mr. WaLLace. Well, it depends on how you would estimate it,
Mr. Kincheloe. If vou were to ask me to give those who are totally