drain the gasoline out of his car and push it over the border and then fill it up again. Such things as that we are getting straightened out as fast as we can. We are also arranging to have licenses issued at as many of the other ports as possible so there will not be any delay in having to send them to Washington. At the present time, of course, we are using the quarters of the foreign and domestic commerce, but those quarters were engaged for peace work and not for war work, and every one of them is crowded. In one day in the New York office they had 1,700 visitors in a room not as big as this one, and the quarters are very inadequate.

Secretary REDFIELD. You are speaking of the offices outside of Washington?

Mr. RICHARDS. Yes; the various branch offices which are normally used for the peace work of the bureau.

The CHAIRMAN. I thought you had all this work here.

Mr. RICHARDS. Yes; that is nothing compared with what we have here. We have had so far. I suppose, about 10,000 applications in about one week.

Mr. GILLETT. Of course, the great rush will come at first, and after you once get it established on a regular system of course the work will diminish tremendously.

Mr. RICHARDS. Of course, we suspect some of these people are getting licenses for shipments that are unnecessary, and that they are simply getting them with the idea that they will find out about them so they can get them later if they need them. Those are the things we have to learn by experience.

Secretary REDFIELD. I might say in regard to Mr. Gillett's statement that if other goods are put under control that will increase the work by a much larger percentage.

Mr. GILLETT. What do you mean by other goods?

Secretary REDFIELD. A larger variety of goods, as, for example, cotton goods or wool or tin plate. The nearest possible estimate we can make to the total export business of the country is that the total export business averages about 8,000 individual items every day, and, of course, we have at present only a relatively small proportion of them; but it seems quite certain that it will be increased; that is, that the goods put under control will be increased.

Mr. GILLETT. Did you state what you have now?

Secretary REDFIELD. It is in the President's proclamation: Coal, coke, fuel oils, kerosene, and gasoline, including bunkers, food grains, flour and meal therefrom, fodder and feeds, meats and fats, pig iron, steel billets, ship plates and structural shapes, scrap iron and scrap steel, ferromanganese, fertilizer, arms, ammunition, and explosives.

The CHAIRMAN. I did not understand your statement, Mr. Richards, that you think some people are applying now for licenses not because they need them but just to see whether they could get them when they do need them?

Mr. RICHARDS. You mean why they should do that?

The CHAIRMAN. No; I do not understand whether a person applies for a license when he is about to make a shipment or applies for a blanket license without any restriction?

Mr. RICHARDS. Oh, no; he applies for a license for a specific quantity of a specific commodity, and he has to tell us where the stuff is going.

The CHAIRMAN. And also for a definite or specified ship? Mr. RICHARDS. No; that is what we have not done as yet. Eventually, we will have to narrow the thing down so we will have some idea as to whether he has a firm order for the goods. Of course, these licenses are worth something to a man to get and they could be traded in possibly. We have got to prevent the possibility of anyone getting a license and selling it to some one else.

The CHAIRMAN. If he was given a license to ship certain goods to a designated place upon a specified ship

Mr. RICHARDS (interposing). Then we could hold him.

The CHAIRMAN. And there would not be any trouble about it?
Mr. RICHARDS. No; none whatever.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you mean that you issue a license that he may export certain commodities without limiting it?

Mr. RICHARDS. No; we give him a license for a specific quantity to be shipped within 60 days.

The CHAIRMAN. Does he specify the place?

Mr. RICHARDS. He has to specify the place; yes. This [indicating] is the form of the license which we expect to use.

Mr. GILLETT. Have you any information as to what proportion of the shipments has gone to neutral nations? I do not know whether the thing has been working long enough for you to have any information along that line or not.

Mr. RICHARDS. No. When you speak of neutral nations, I assume you mean the neutral nations of Europe contiguous to Germany. Mr. GILLETT. Yes.

Mr. RICHARDS. I do not think we have issued any such licenses, with possibly one or two exceptions.

Mr. GILLETT. Have you refused any?

Mr. RICHARDS. No; they are just being considered and gone over and tabulated.

Mr. GILLETT. But there have been applications?

Mr. RICHARDS. Oh, thousands and thousands and thousands of them, for every conceivable thing, in enormous quantities.

Secretary REDFIELD. I think we could cover this table with the pending applications to the neutral nations of Europe.

Mr. RICHARDS. They include fodders and feed and grain of all kinds, foodstuffs, unlimited quantities of fats and lards, etc.

Secretary REDFIELD. This subject touches the most delicate and difficult and important international relations at every hour and at almost every place, and is a means which may be used for good or for ill. It is one that has got to be safeguarded with the utmost discretion and care. And I want to say to the committee that in securing the services of Mr. Richards to take charge of this work. we have secured them through his patriotic kindness and through the kindness of a large New York firm, which allowed him to come. to us after many years of experience in handling export business of this character.

Mr. RICHARDS. I would like to call attention to this stub. The object of that is to prevent fraud. That is filled out by the collector, so that if the quantity in the license should be raised the collector fills this out from the bill of lading and then it is returned to us and checked up with our original records, and in that way we would catch him. It might be too late, but we would know who did it and stop

him from getting other licenses, and we also might be able to catch the boat by wireless.

Mr. GILLETT. I would suppose that the shipowner would not take a shipment which exceeded the amount which was licensed?

Mr. RICHARDS. No; but the shipper gets this license and he might raise it and the steamship company would not know it. Then the collector checks this off with the bill of lading and sends it back to us.

The CHAIRMAN. What is your present organization?

Secretary REDFIELD. We have at present 29 clerks, 35 stenographers, 8 advisers and trade experts. They are the men who are expert on the particular lines of goods that are being controlled. The total force at present is 72, but we are adding to that every day, and made additional appointments only this morning. At present we are only able to keep even with the work by working until after 11 o'clock every night. They were there last night until that time because I saw them there. Our thought is that we may need for this work as high as 230 persons, but we have managed to save a good deal by getting these men who are willing to work for $60 a month. These are men who are getting in their private business many, many times that amount, and they are coming here and serving voluntarily.

Mr. SHERLEY. To what extent?

Mr. RICHARDS. They are all volunteers except the clerks and stenographers. Everyone else there is a volunteer.

Mr. SHERLEY. From what source are they taken?

Mr. RICHARDS. They are men who have been drafted in or men that we know and have written for or have appealed to to come down to help us in this work. They have given up their businesses and resigned from their old connections for the period of the war. They have simply given up everything to come down here and work, the most of them receiving $60 per month.

There is just one other item I want to call attention to in reference to this work. The British Government, as you know, controls a great many raw products which we have to have, such as a part of our rubber, practically all of the jute, a good portion of the tin, etc. The British Government controls a great many of those products through capital control or otherwise, as in the case of pyrites, from which we make sulphuric acid, and in order to prevent those products from getting into the hands of her enemies it has been her practice to bring them to America and sell them to merchants here through her consuls general in the various ports, who have executed agreements with the buyers of the raw products that they would not reexport the finished products. In some cases they have exclusive control over their export to any other countries, or they limit it subject to the supervision of the consuls. Now they are willing to do away with all of that control and to turn the whole thing over to us, permitting us to bring in those controlled things provided we will supervise the exports, doing just what she through her consuls has been doing in the past.

The CHAIRMAN. Will they continue their practice of insisting upon certificates of assurance?

Mr. RICHARDS. They are perfectly willing to discontinue it when we are ready to act.

Secretary REDFIELD. As soon as we are ready, they are ready to drop it.

The CHAIRMAN. Those certificates of assurance operate very injuriously to us.

Secretary REDFIELD. Sometimes they do.

The CHAIRMAN. Many times it has nothing at all to do with any advantage or disadvantage that might arise from furnishing these things to her enemies.

Mr. RICHARDS. They are willing to turn that over to us absolutely whenever we are ready to take it up, which will be very soon.

Mr. BYRNS. I do not know whether this has been gone over or not, but when I was called out of the room awhile ago you had just made the statement that you had engaged in this particular activity twenty-odd clerks at the present time.

Secretary REDFIELD. There are 72 persons altogether.

Mr. BYRNS. Now, I notice in this addenda to your estimates which you submit that you propose the employment of 248 persons. That, I take it, is based upon the idea that you will receive an appropriation of $570,000.

Secretary REDFIELD. Yes, sir: of which $150,000 has been given us already by the President.

Mr. BYRNS. Then the fact that you have reduced this particular appropriation does not reduce the number of employees?

Secretary REDFIELD. It does reduce it by 20.

Mr. BYRNS. What proportion of these employees are taken from the civil-service register?

Mr. RICHARDS. All of the clerks, and everyone who is not working at what we consider a nominal salary. A nominal salary is anything less than 50 per cent of what the person earned in his previous position. Everyone else, except those, has to pass an examination, and everyone is taken through the Civil Service Commission.

Secretary REDFIELD. Everyone of that 72 has been through the civil service.

Mr. RICHARDS. Yes, sir; everyone of them has been through the civil service.

The CHAIRMAN. They have taken noncompetitive examinations? Mr. RICHARDS. Where the salary is nominal, or where the $60 per month paid to a man is less than 50 per cent of his former salary.

Secretary REDFIELD. Every application was made through the Civil Service Commission. Formal applications were made to the Civil Service Commission, and we got the approval of the Civil Service Commission for all the appointments.

Mr. BYRNS. Take the chiefs of division, the assistant chiefs, administrative clerks, chiefs of section, assistants chiefs of section, and the 50 trade experts-are they taken from the civil service?

Secretary REDFIELD. They are all taken in the same way.

Mr. BYRNS. Under noncompetitive or competitive examinations? Secretary REDFIELD. Where there is a competitive list, they would be taken from that competitive list.

Mr. BYRNS. Take these trade experts-are their duties here in Washington?

Mr. RICHARDS. Right here in Washington.

Secretary REDFIELD. We have only two at present.

Mr. BYRNS. You propose to employ 50 of them?

Secretary REDFIELD. That is reduced by 10. There will be 40. That is a mere guess of what may be required. That will depend on whether other classes of things are added by presidential proclamation. For instance, if the President saw fit to include cotton, we would have to get a textile man to look after that, or if he saw fit to include tin plate we would need a man familiar with that business. For the moment there are only two.

Mr. BYRNS. I notice that in this list of salaries you have two chiefs of division at $3,500 per annum. Is not that much higher than any other chief of division receives in your department? If I am not mistaken, it is higher than the salary paid a chief of division in any department, although possibly there may be some exceptions.

Secretary REDFIELD. They are paid the same, I think.
Mr. RICHARDS. We were told that.

Mr. JOHANNES. You are probably confusing this with the classification of division chiefs in the departments who are paid $2,000 per year. Those chiefs of division are really head clerks. Those positions are not in line with this position at all. As a matter of fact. in our department we have chiefs of division getting that much salary. We have them in the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. Mr. BYRNS. Getting as much as $3,500 a year?

Mr. JOHANNES. Yes, sir.

Mr. BYRNS. This will be paid out of a lump-sum appropriation? Mr. JOHANNES. Yes, sir.

Secretary REDFIELD. Mr. Richards is the chief of division in charge of the entire work.

Mr. BYRNS. My attention was attracted to the salary fixed by the fact that on the statutory roll chiefs of division get $2,500. That is the highest salary, and I was wondering why this was advanced.

Secretary REDFIELD. This is not in the same class with those positions at all. In this case, the chief of the division is in charge of the whole service. It corresponds to a bureau. It would not be any misnomer at all to call him an assistant chief of bureau, but that would require definite legislation.

Mr. RICHARDS. Bureau chiefs get $6,000.

Secretary REDFIELD. In other words. this is not a subordinate officer, but he is at the head of a whole section of that work.

Mr. CANNON. It seems that when you want a clerical man, he takes the civil-service examination, but when you want somebody as an expert, you get him without requiring him to go through an actual civil-service examination. That is, you find out the man you want to employ. Now, when he comes in at $600 per year, you call that civil service. You say that it is under the civil service, but, as I understand you, in order to get his position that way, he must have been receiving for his services, for which you pay him at the rate of $60 per month, double that amount, or more, in private employment? Mr. RICHARDS. More than double that.

Mr. CANNON. Of course, you want experience and brains

Mr. RICHARDS (interposing). We could not buy the brains of the people in this division, because Congress would not give us money enough to hire these men. Some of these men, make $40,000 or $50,000 a year in their business, and they give up their business to come down