erals and Metals, Book Metals, mostly metals; Commercial Steel & Chemical is a large firm that deals mostly in scrap; Continental Iron & Steel is a division of Southwest, which is a producer of scrap; Doeleer & Kirstein is a manufacturer; Dulien Steel Products is a branch office in New York, and a big scrap producer in Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Electric Controller & Manufacturing is a magnet manufacturer in Cleveland; Associate Fabricant Steel is a dealer, and so forth. So that that will explain why that New York lists looks as though it does violence to my statement, which it does. Lipsett, Inc., is a big wrecker and producer of scrap. They just tore down the Third Avenue elevated.

Mr. MULTER. Metallurgical Products Co., what are they?

Mr. BARRINGER. That is a New York branch of a Philadelphia firm that deals pretty much in all steel, and Mr. Welinshek heads that up. Mr. MULTER. Is he a broker?

Mr. BARRINGER. He would be considered more of an associate member, sir, than an active member.

Mr. MULTER. I wondered what kind of company was operating out of an apartment in a dwelling.

Mr. BARRINGER. Yes. That is where Mr. Wilenshek's son lives. That is just a mail address.

The CHAIRMAN. You spoke of yard facilities. What are they? Mr. BARRINGER. A yard facility, sir, is this: A dealer will have facilities for what we call preparing scrap. In other words, he may buy a locomotive and torch it to specification size. He may buy old automobiles and have a baling press, and some of the presses will take an automobile or truck from bumper to bumper and less than a minute squeeze it down into a bale less than the size of an orange crate. They have alligator shears that cut bar stock and structures, and cut them to 5-foot lengths. They have drops that they let large balls fall on cast iron machinery and smash it into small pieces, various pieces of equipment for preparing scrap to specification size. Mr. MULTER. I think you mentioned that there is about $300 million of investment in equipment?

Mr. BARRINGER. Yes.

Mr. MULTER. Is that equipment or plant and equipment?
Mr. BARRINGER. What distinction do you draw, sir?

Mr. MULTER. Plant and equipment or just equipment?

Mr. BARRINGER. The only plant that we would have other than equipment would just be an office building, scrap is an outdoor industry.

Mr. MULTER. You need a lot of territory. You need a scrap yard for your junk, and so forth, don't you?

Mr. BARRINGER. Some would have land; yet. That would mean the capital investment.

Mr. MULTER. You list that as part of the equipment?

Mr. BARRINGER. Yes, sir; capital investment.

Mr. MULTER. I notice that the dues of your association are based upon volume of business. Will you tell us the minimum and the maximum dues paid and the average dues paid?

Mr. BARRINGER. Our dues range from a minimum of $125 a year for dealers who handle 15,000 tons or less, to a top of $1,320 for dealers who handle, I think, 750,000 tons or more a year. We have, I believe,

5 or 6 in the top category. About 92 percent of our members are in the minimum category, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You have told us that no semiintegrated steel company or iron foundry has lost 1 hour of production that could be charged to the scrap industry. How many iron foundries have suspended operations during 1955?

Mr. BARRINGER. I wouldn't know, but none for a shortage of scrap, sir.

Mr. MULTER. I don't care what the reason was. I would like to know how many have suspended operations, if you know.

Mr. BARRINGER. I wouldn't know.

Mr. MULTER. Do you know how many have reduced their working week-the number of hours they work each week?

Mr. BARRINGER. No, but let me say again our dealers have had great difficulty finding a market for the grade of scrap that is consumed by iron foundries.

Mr. MULTER. You have no information on the number of iron foundries that have not operated at capacity?

Mr. BARRINGER. No; that may be due to causes other than scrap, sir. Mr. MULTER. I am not looking for cause at the moment. I first want to establish the fact as to whether they are or are not operating at capacity, and how many, if any, suspended operations during 1955. Mr. BARRINGER. The foundry industry has operated at a much lower capacity than the steel mills, generally, due to a lack of business. Mr. MULTER. You referred to a company out on the west coast that would not meet the price. They were not willing to pay the price, and therefore they didn't buy, even though there is scrap available out there at the going price. Do you know of any other instances of any foundries elsewhere in the country who refused to buy because of the price?

Mr. BARRINGER. I didn't say, sir, that the mill on the west coast refused to buy at a price. Let me read it and I will put it into the record.

Mr. MULTER. I am not trying to misquote you. I am not trying to trap you into anything.

Mr. BARRINGER. I understand, sir. I quote from a letter dated February 10, in Portland, Oreg.:

The Northwest Steel Rolling Mills of Seattle, who have been a strong exponent of export control, is completely out of the market and will not accept any offerings of scrap at any price.

The Oregon Steel Mills here at Portland is out of the market. We contacted them yesterday, offering them a tonnage of scrap and they advised that they are not interested for the next month in any offerings.

We understand that this same situation applies to all the mills in California also.

Mr. MULTER. The statement I refer to is on page 5 of your statement, and it reads:

Typical of complaints without foundation and ballooned up out of all proportion is that of two small nonintegrated steel mills in Seattle and Portland. These two mills, blaming exports for high prices and lack of supplies, have a capacity of two-tenths of 1 percent of the steel industry of the United States. They wanted to buy scrap in 1955 at 1945 prices. Now, as for some time past they have been out of the market. Dealers in Seattle and Portland have up to 20,000 tons available to sell and they are unable to sell to these mills.

These are the mills not buying scrap?

Mr. BARRINGER. That is the letter of February 10 that I just read. Mr. MULTER. Are there any other nonintegrated steel mills anywhere else in the country who take the same position as those two mills in Oregon?

Mr. BARRINGER. I have no firsthand knowledge. I have heard in Washington as I made my contacts that the nonintegrated mills generally have been opposed to exports, but I couldn't cite you chapter and verse.

Mr. BROWN. May I ask you a question?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. BROWN. I notice they have a table here that the OPS ceiling price was terminated on February 15, 1953. Did that affect the price after that?

Mr. MULTER. I don't know.

Mr. BROWN. Why did they terminate it?

Mr. MULTER. Maybe Mr. Barringer can tell us that. Can you answer, Mr. Barringer?

Mr. BARRINGER. Yes. You see, for the first month after OPS was terminated, prices had a very slight rise. The amount went from $42.92 to $44.18, just very fractional.

Mr. BROWN. Didn't they set a different price every month?

Mr. BARRINGER. No, sir; there were only two levels of prices.

Mr. BROWN. When that was terminated did prices go up or down? Mr. BARRINGER. It went up for a month, a little bit of a bulge, then it started to slack off. It came back a little bit in July, and then began the slide.

Mr. BROWN. The OPS ceiling price then didn't affect the price of scrap iron. Why did they remove the OPS ceiling price?

Mr. BARRINGER. I believe the price was removed on February 13, 1953, and I believe that the new administration, which had just come in power on January 20, felt that control was no longer required. Mr. BROWN. The ceiling price didn't have very much effect on it one way or the other, then.

The CHAIRMAN. What was the ceiling price?

Mr. BROWN. It varied. After 1953 it went down.

The CHAIRMAN. What was the ceiling price?

Mr. BARRINGER. The ceiling price was at first, on No. 1 heavy melting steel at Pittsburgh, $43, and then reduced $1 to $42. This is the period. This was the reduction from $43 to $42. Then you see that slight bulge at the termination, and then down. That represented the slack-off of steel demand.

Mr. BROWN. I know, but when you removed the ceiling in 1953, the following year it went considerably down. In 1954 it was $28.66; January, 1952, $42, etc. It came down considerably the following year after they terminated the ceiling price.

Mr. BARRINGER. Your recollection may be better than mine, but I would like to hazard this: That controls came off at about the end of the Korean war. The Government spending for the so-called war period went off, and the steel mills foresaw, as I saw a little while ago, a period of declining demand, and so they went out of the scrap market. Mr. BROWN. OPS ceiling prices terminated in November of 1946. Then on February 7, 1951, the OPS ceiling price went into effect.

That was terminated February 13, 1953. So after 1953, a few months after the first of 1953, and in 1953 it went from $43 to $28.66 in several months.

The CHAIRMAN. Was there an embargo on export at that time?
Mr. MULTER. During the Korean war there was.

Mr. BARRINGER. I wouldn't say there was an embargo on, but I believe at that time there was a quota of I think about 50,000 tons a quarter to Mexico, and no exports permitted to other countries, because during the Korean emergency it was felt there was necessity for all of our scrap here. The Korean emergency situation was over, the bottom fell out of the market, and we as an industry began pounding on the doors in Washington for an open market on exports, the right to sell our scrap, and over a period of a couple of years there was a gradual relaxation until it was felt on April 1fi, 1954, that there was no need for any quantitative restrictions.

The CHAIRMAN. The extent at that time was 50,000 tons a quarter? Mr. BARRINGER. A quarter; yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. There was practically an embargo on the exportation of scrap and the price of scrap products; is that true? Mr. BARRINGER. I don't quite follow you.

Do you want to answer that?

Mr. STORY. The price did not drop because of any embargo.
The CHAIRMAN. But it dropped.

Mr. MULTER. The question is not because of anything. Did it drop?
Mr. STORY. The price of scrap dropped.

Mr. BROWN. It dropped considerably?

Mr. STORY. What period are you referring to, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. I referred to the period in which they lifted the ceiling price, and then the price of scrap dropped contemporaneously with that. At that time there was an embargo, or practical embargo, on the exportation of scrap. As you say, you have looked it up there, the only export of scrap was to Mexico-50,000 tons. That would be a quarter. That would be 200,000 tons a year, which is negligible, so it was really an embargo on the exportation of scrap.

Whether that caused it, or not, the price of scrap did drop at that time; didn't it?

Mr. STORY. It started to drop at that time, Mr. Chairman, but you will notice that even after export restrictions were loosened, in the latter part of 1953, that the price continued to drop until January, February, and March, or thereabouts, in 1954. It wasn't until the steel industry began to realize that its steel production in 1955 would be better that prices began to rise gradually, but you will notice that in 1954, in the early part, we reach a low point, and if you will remember, in 1954, that was the period in which we were talking about the possibility of running into a very deep recession. Scrap being a volatile commodity, this had a greater impact on price than it might have had on other products. That is one of the reasons for the big drop here.

Mr. BARRINGER. I think I would like to restate our contention that the export market in scrap was not a major factor in the rise in the price of scrap, especially in the last half of last year; that export buying was done on the basis of that Iron Age composite or the average of the domestic price, and that exports followed rather than led the domestic market.

Mr. MULTER. You mean as the price went up, they bought more for export?

Mr. BARRINGER. No.

Mr. MULTER. The people in the foreign countries bought more from us as the price went up?

Mr. BARRINGER. No, I say this: That they bought for their requirements, you might say regardless of price. They accepted the Iron Age composite as a true reflection of the market in the United States, and it was the increased requirement domestically, rather than the export situation that raised the price. It was the action of the consumers who increased their monthly requirements to purchase scrap from about 214 million tons, early in 1955 to almost 3 million tons at the close of 1955. It was that rather than exports.

Mr. MULTER. Do you have any of the figures on unemployment among the gray iron foundries, 1953, 1954, or 1955?

Mr. BARRINGER. No.

Mr. MULTER. Do you know what it is percentagewise in those years? Mr. BARRINGER. No; but I would like to make this statement if it is in order: That the gray iron foundry industry has suffered from technological advances in other industries and that scrap, the supply and price had no bearing upon the fortunes of the gray iron industry.

Mr. MULTER. Well, you see, I am very much impressed here by some of the information that is not being supplied to us, quite apart, and I say it most respectfully, quite apart from the contentions that you urge as to what the reasons are for these ultimate facts-we are not getting the basic facts. I would like to know what the unemployment is during this period from 1950 to 1956, today, among the gray iron foundries. I would like to know also what the unemployment is, if any, for those same years in the nonintegrated and in the integrated foundries.

I think that might throw considerable light on this subject.
Mr. MUMMA. Will the gentleman yield a minute?

Mr. MULTER. Yes; I yield.

Mr. MUMMA. Would it be under his function to know all those statistics on the foundry trade? This man is in the scrap business. Mr. MULTER. No; this man isn't in any business at all. He is an executive director of the Institute of Scrap Iron & Steel.

Mr. MUMMA. All right. To get your information, shouldn't you have the Institute of Gray Iron Foundries here to give you that? Is that a fair question?

Mr. BARRINGER. Yes, sir. I was going to make that point. I represent the scrap iron industry. You will have here tomorrow representatives, I understand, of the gray-iron foundry industry.

Mr. MULTER. You don't mean to tell us seriously that you don't keep yourself abreast of the economic conditions of the entire iron industry and all its facets?

Mr. BARRINGER. That is a technical detail of the foundry industry. Mr. MULTER. It may be, but you don't mean to say as executive vice president of this institute that you don't keep yourself abreast of the general economic conditions of the country?

Mr. BARRINGER. General economic conditions, but that is a detail of another industry.

Mr. MULTER. This is a detail not of the general economics of the country, but of the economics that affect your industry, the industry