The same situation prevails in other producing countries. In France and Italy high duties and currency restrictions prevent us from being competitive; we can send only relatively small quantities to Great Britain under the British token import plan, administered in part by our own Department of Commerce. In Belgium we also face serious barriers. Yet on more than one occasion our United States negotiators have granted cuts in United States photographic duties in favor of Belgium while, with the formation of the Benelux Customs Union, we wound up with substantially increased duties in the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Developments have shown that the reciprocal trade agreements program has become mainly a device to place the United States as nearly on a free-trade basis as possible. One major exception is the United States market for agricultural products, which is of great interest to many foreign producing countries. Yet, instead of freely opening up our home markets to importation which would seriously compete with our own agriculture, we wisely, I think, safeguard them by duties and in some instances by severe quota limitations. The photographic industry's peacetime skilled labor force, maintained at a satisfactory level, would be sufficient only to provide the essential nucleus of key workers for an expanded wartime production of photographic products as well as in the making of precision nonphotographic products which this industry is counted upon to produce (height finders and rangefinders in applications not suited to electronic equipment, fire-control devices, timers, proximity fuses, etc.). If "reciprocal" trade is necessary to preserve world peace, then no price is too great to pay for it. If it should not wholly succeed in its purpose, however. whom will our country call on for essential photographic and optical products? World War II provided the impetus for the growth of the optical industry in Japan. It is ironic that we must suffer today to help develop and expand their industry. We should gravely question the wisdom of a procedure which results in transferring our strategically important industry and our critical skilled jobs to foreign countries. In the interest of maintaining tariff reductions on a selective, gradual and moderate basis, we believe that safeguards should be imposed to prevent further reduction of tariffs which have already been reduced more than "moderately." We believe that more attention should be given to provisions for restoration of adequate tariffs where they are inadequate now, and to provisions for quotas in those segments of the industry where tariffs alone will not suffice. I know you will give these matters serious consideration. Mr. DETWEILER. My name is Joseph Detweiler. I am employed by Sylvania Electric Products, Inc., as vice president and general manager of the Argus Cameras division and I am here on behalf of Argus. Our organization is representative of the still camera industry in the United States. We make still cameras, slide and motion-picture projectors and we sell meters, viewers, and other photographic ac cessories. We are not opposed in general to reciprocal trade as a principle, but we do object to the way it has been administered and we object specifically to H. R. 12591 because this could be damaging to us, to the photographic industry, to our 900 employees, to our suppliers and others who are indirectly involved, and this could also be damaging to the country, because our industry is one which is vital to the national defense. We were the first American manufacturers of 35-millimeter cameras, but today there are hundreds of foreign 35-millimeter cameras being sold on this market. These come primarily from countries with standards of living considerably lower than that in the United States. The wage rate in the photographic industry in Japan, for example, is about 10 percent of ours. The average wage of men employed there is about 25 cents an hour compared to $2.50 in our industry, in Ann Arbor, Mich. The wage rate of females employed in Japan in the photographic industry is about half of that, half of the 25 cents. Yet we are forced to compete on an equal footing with this kind of competition. One way we can compete is to buy components abroad. That we are doing, and in doing so, we are exporting skilled jobs in a critical producing area. Would you please look at exhibit 1 in my statement, which shows the 1930 rate of duty on various major divisions of photographic equipment, how that rate has changed to the present day, and what further reductions would be possible under the provisions of H. R. 12591. The category with which I am most concerned, personally, is the second category, still cameras valued at $10 or more, which has now been reduced 25 percent and could be reduced under 12591 to a total of 4334 percent less than the 1930 rate. The other categories all could be reduced under the bill to an even greater degree from the 1930 rate. Now how does this affect us? Would you please look at exhibit 2 which shows the growth of imports in this industry? The items again with which I am most concerned are shown there at the beginning of the exhibit, still cameras valued at more than $10 each and I have shown the amounts coming in from various countries. You will see that the major source of these imports are East Germany, West Germany, and Japan. Please note that the total imports from West Germany in 1957 constituted $9.250.000, those from Japan constituted $6,037,000, but that in each of the last 3 years those imports from Japan had doubled. It doesn't take much figuring to see what can happen to our industry in a few more years of growth of imports at that rate. Please compare the figures at the bottom of the page showing the approximate value of Argus sales of 35-millimeter cameras in these same years. You will note they have been steadily decreasing in a market that has been expanding rapidly. Yet Argus is one of the few manufacturers in this country who can say that our major product, which is the C-3 camera, is selling at a price lower than its price 8 years ago, in spite of steadily rising costs. We have recently introduced a new model still selling lower than the price 8 years ago, which includes as a part of the package a Japanese exposure meter. There have been two major manufacturers of camera shutters in the United States, and a few years ago one of those manufacturers filed an escape clause action protesting that without satisfactory protection, his business would disappear. Relief was not granted and it has substantially disappeared. This has resulted in the loss of three to four hundred jobs in Rochester. This company is Wollensak. These people laid off were in the main skilled, trained, optical technicians (who require 3 to 5 years of training) in addition to engineers and research people. This company has been substantially forced to give up its shutter engineering and research. This was 1 of the 84 escape-clause actions which have been instituted prior to 1957, of which the Tariff Commission made favorable recommendations in 26, and in only 9 of which were favorable recommendations approved by the President. Let me tell you just a little more about this type of foreign competition that we face. In the first place, it is mechanized practically to the same degree that our industry is mechanized. In the second place, it is subsidized by various devices of foreign governments. To take one example, the Japanese Government gives a credit against income taxes for products which are exported. Thirdly, there are indications that many of these photographic products are being dumped on our market. For further evidence along those lines, I would refer you to my testimony before the Ways and Means Committee of the House on February 26, 1958. Fourth, these people imitate the United States products. You will see attached in my statement a picture of a viewer which we first produced about 3 to 4 years ago, compared with similar viewers which are being produced by Japanese companies today. I might say that this country, and I am sure this helps to sell the product, as "identical to Argus." You will see that not only is the general design of this viewer similar, the features and the components are similar, and even the packaging is similar. The photographs you have there are in black and white, but in most cases, the colors of the boxes are almost the same as ours. Now, this is supposed to be reciprocal trade, but reciprocity in our business is a myth. For one example, during the past 4 years, as 1 of the earlier tables showed, there were 130,000 cameras valued at $62 million imported from a market that is closed to us, East Germany. Similarly, we cannot sell in most foreign countries of the world. Canada is the only export market which is of any significance to us. We have on occasion in past years sold to some of these countries, but we are prevented from doing so now. |