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Show CONGRESSMAN DAWSON'S WEEKLY REPORT this trend is stopped, our nation will become dependent upon other countries for lend ;md zinc just as surely us il Communists had bombed our domestic mines. erican miners in Park City and elsewhere, it would ha been opposed op-posed bitterly, to understate the situation in the extreme. Instead, the government just took Utah miners' jobs and 22 per j cent of their income in taxes and gave them to foreigners. This is a serious situation. I have already discussed the matter with Frank N. Hoffman, legislative legisla-tive representative for the United Steel Workers in Washington. He is vitally concerned. Members of the union in Park City and else- 1 where have been thrown out of work by non-union miners in foreign for-eign mines throughout the world. I have also discussed the matter with mine owners and operators and I intend to draw up legislation legisla-tion that will protect the nation's natural resources from this reverse re-verse type of exploitation. Unless tares in foreign mining." More "Policies" Not content with just granting tar advantages to encourage foreign competition, the government went a step farther. far-ther. Again I quote from the D.P.A. bulletin: "When an American or foreign producer of materials abroad cannot can-not raise capital, the government is authorized to make a direct loan to the producer under certain circumstances. cir-cumstances. Such loans have been made for the expansion of lead and zinc in French Morocco, for iron ore in Liberia and for zinc in Peru." And in addition and this to me is shocking the government did even more to sink our domestic do-mestic industry, throw our miners out of work to build up French Morocco and its workers. Remember Remem-ber the government put a ceiling on domestic lead-zinc prices, then paid foreign producers over-ceiling prices. But did the government guarantee domestic mines a price floor in case the zinc-lead market mar-ket should break ? No, they saved this last advantage for French Morocco or Peru or, if you please, Timbuctu. "The long term contract (to buy foreign metals) usually provides a minimum price guarantee. The government agrees to buy if the market price falls below a certain level," the D.P.A. booklet reports. If the federal government had tried to import a French Morocco labor crew to replace Utah's Am- Where are the Jobs? Before I left for Washington, an unemployed unemploy-ed miner from Park City called on me. He explained that he was a good workman, that he had lived in Park City and mined all his life and that now the mines were closed and he and his family were having a tough time getting along. I promised him I would try to - find out what the trouble was as soon as I got back to the nation's capital. What I found Since returning to Washington I have spent a good . deal of my spare time trying to find out what happened to my friend's job. I found out. It is being be-ing held down by a native of French Morocco who is working for one-tenth of a living American wage. And a lot of other Utah miners are in the same boat. This is how it happened. When it Began Shortly after the Korean war began, lead and zinc became scarce. The government govern-ment slapped a ceiling price on our mines, then went out in the foreign market and bought lead and zinc. There they paid much more for the metals than they allowed our domestic producers to charge. The foreign mines charged all the traffic would bear, pocketing pocket-ing huge profits at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer. Then when the shortage ceased, foreign producers pro-ducers took advantage of their lower labor ctfsts and higher grade ore to force the price down. The State Department's policy of keeping keep-ing friends overseas kept the administration ad-ministration from imposing any realistic tariff. As a result, Utah miners are without jobs. State Department Miners But the federal "desk pockeys" in the State Department didn't stop there. While Utah mines and miners min-ers were 'working under ceiling prices and paying heavy taxes, the State Department was using this tax money to set up foreign competition, com-petition, and the Department was proud of it. In their own words I have before be-fore me a publication of the Defense De-fense Production Administration which, in glowing terms, outlines its policy to develop foreign mines. It does not mention, however, that the same policy has brought Utah mines to the brink of disaste and deprived hundreds of American miners of their lifetime jobs. Hot it was done Because of high taxes and uncertain earnings, (Jtrh's lead-zinc mining industry has been hard put to save up enough capital for new exploration explora-tion to develop new ore bodies. The ircdusry also had trouble getting get-ting outside money from investors to continue exploration and development dev-elopment for the same reason. But the government adopted a different policy for Americans who wanted to invest their money to set up foreign mines in competition com-petition to our own. And here I quote from a Defense Production Administration bulletin written just before he previous Administration Admin-istration left office: "Tax credits are now available to a U.S. corporate taxpayer who owns as little as 10 per cent of the stock of a foreign corporation. This change should stimulate minority min-ority investment and joint ven- |
