308 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.

A like complaint came from W. G. Crocker, a director of the
Washburn-Crosby Co.. Minneapolis. Minn. He said:
I might lay a little more stress on the cause of the decline of the American
 export in flour, which came about through discrimination in ocean rates
nnd in years gone by in domestic rates on. wheat as against flour. That
enabled the foreign millers to rebuild their mills, so that now, instead of old
mills, they have modern mills that can compete right with us, and that little
discrimination between wheat and flour is just enough to give them all the
susiness and make competition extremely keen for us, because the margins in
the milling business are very close. For 10 or 15 cents a barrel any miller in
this country would give you a contract to run full capacity for life,

5

®

If the happy day would ever come that the ocean lines would carry wheat
and flour at the same rate, as we said to the ocean carriers, we do not care
how you make the rates; what we want you to do is to carry the wheat at
the flour rate-and not cut the wheat rate.
The CHAIRMAN. Who established those rates?
Mr, Crocker. I think they are established by the representatives of the
various ocean lines on this side. The ocean lines were very favorably inclined
pn year ago at the millers’ annual convention to meet us halfway, and then along
came the war and evervthing was unsettled.

die

The reason was that the ocean carriers and inland carriers, as far as that is
roncerned, claim it is easier and cheaper to handle wheat than flour. Naturally
they can take a hull and load it and there is less labor fo load it with wheat
than with flour. ,
Relative to the same situation, H. S. Helm, of the Russell Miller
Milling Co., Minneapolis, stated:

Wheat can be stored, transported, and carried for long periods probably
somewhat cheaper than flour. At least, wheat has been transported more
cheaply than flour, and that primarily started the building of the mills
abroad. The mills are built there on the ground, and they are able to give
quicker service than we can offer here. - They are doing business with their
own people and have the trade. We get it during periods when there is a
surplus of wheat in this country which drops our prices to the basis where we
can get it for a time and in a limited quantity, but with the foreign mills able
to draw their wheat from all parts of the world, we are only the cheap sellers;
we only have our bargains once in a while. It is difficult to work up a steady
trade anywhere if.you are only in once in a while. The man on the ground
with his mill over there is in it at all times. If we happen to be the chief wheat
market of the world here, if our surplus is bagged so that it has to be exported,
why, we get in for a little flour; he takes his wheat from here and on a
little better basis manufactures it, and when we drop out and our surplus or
the pressure of surplus has been relieved, he goes to the next fellow—it may
be Argentina or it may be Australia or India, or it may be Russia—who has a
bargain to offer and he is always in. That is the great difficulty. That is the
rause of the decline of our export flour business.

In regard to the advantages of foreign combinations in this connection.
 Eli Winkler, of Isaac Winkler &amp; Bros., Cincinnati, Ohio, said:
Tt might be of interest to know, though, that from their point of distribution
to the seaboard they have a freight rate of some 6 or 7 cents a hundred, whereas
ours is 163.
So, arriving at New York with the disadvantage of probably $2 a ton, we are
onfronted with. next. the disadvantage of lack of service in ships.

on

These combinations in companies abroad have interlocking directorates, and
they are enabled to get better rates than we are. So that, all around. we are at
a very, very decided disadvantage.
Watt L. Moreland, general manager of the Moreland Truck Co.,
Los Angeles, Cal., stated that his company could meet European