ST. LAWRENCE SEAWAY MONDAY, MARCH 5, 1951 COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC WORKS, The committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10:05 a. m., Hon. Charles A. Buckley (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. We are now ready to start the meeting. The committee will come to order. The Chair recognizes Mr. Dondero. Mr. DONDERO. Mr. Chairman, I received this morning from the clerk of Wayne County, Mich., a resolution passed by the board of supervisors of that county, unanimously. Wayne County includes the city of Detroit. Wayne County with Oakland represents almost 40 percent of the population of the State of Michigan. This resolution passed unanimously by the board of supervisors is in favor of the seaway. I ask, Mr. Chairman, that it be made a part of the record. Mr. FALLON. No objection. The CHAIRMAN. It will be incorporated in the record at this point. (The document is as follows:) OFFICE OF THE CLERK, COUNTY OF WAYNE, Detroit, Mich., March 2, 1951. DEAR CONGRESSMAN: Transmitted herewith is a certified copy of a resolution adopted unanimously by the Wayne County Board of Supervisors at a special session held on Friday, March 2, 1951. The subject matter of this resolution favoring and urging the construction of the St. Lawrence seaway is deemed by the board to be of the utmost importance to the people of Michigan. It is therefore respectfully urged that your immediate and favorable attention be given to this matter. Yours very truly, STATE OF MICHIGAN, County of Wayne, ss: EDGAR M. BRANIGIN, Clerk to the Board of Supervisors. I, Edgar M. Branigin, clerk of Wayne County and clerk to the Board of Supervisors for the county of Wayne, do hereby certify that the attached resolution of the Wayne County Board of Supervisors, adopted at the special session, Friday, March 2, 1951, by a vote of yeas, 74; nays, none; is a true and correct copy as appears of record in my office. That I have compared the same with the original, and it is a true transcript therefrom, and of the whole thereof. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the seal of the circuit court for the county of Wayne, at Detroit, Mich., this 2d day of March A. D. 1951. EDGAR M. BRANIGIN, Clerk to the Board of Supervisors for the County of Wayne. 469 RESOLUTION (By Supervisor Oakman) Whereas for at least the past 30 years it has been urged that the St. Lawrence deep-water seaway connecting the Great Lakes with the sea be constructed for the economic benefit and betterment of the United States of America; and Whereas for an equal number of years a certain limited number of cities, States, and organized business groups have successfully opposed this project by the allegation that their individual economic life and business interests would suffer as much harm as the benefits which would be extended to other cities, States, and business interests in the rest of the country; and Whereas this ancient argument of opposition has now turned into a direct and dangerous threat against the very security of our country in view of the important and essential part the seaway is to the security needs of this country; Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Board of Supervisors of the County of Wayne this 2d day of March 1951, That these dangerous and selfish forces of opposition to the St. Lawrence seaway be opposed by vigorous means and that every effort be made to advance the many justifiable reasons why the seaway should be constructed for the welfare, security, and benefit of the entire United States of America; and be it further Resolved, That all United States Congressmen from the State of Michigan be, and they hereby are, urged to bend every effort to obtain immediate passage of Federal legislation to provide funds for the construction of the St. Lawrence seaway; and be it further Resolved, That the clerk be, and he hereby is, directed to transmit copies of this resolution to all Congressmen from Michigan and, further, that copies be transmitted to the boards of supervisors of all counties of the State of Michigan requesting that they pass similar resolutions and transmit same to Congress; and be it further Resolved, That the Michigan State Legislature be, and it hereby is, importuned to adopt an appropriate joint resolution memorializing the Congress of the United States to approve funds for the construction of the St. Lawrence seaway. Motion by Supervisor Oakman that the resolution be adopted, supported by Supervisor Leggat. Adopted as follows: Yeas: Supervisors Abernethy, Ackerman, Allan, Bachman, Beck, Belford, Boos, Bower, Brashear, Bunnell, Burgess, Carpenter, Ciungan, Connor, Cruetz, Cyers, Daly, Dougherty, Dugan, Dulapa, Farmer, Fillmore, Funk, Hammond, Hart, Heftler, Herrick, Honer, Hubbard, Rex Johnston, Kreger, Laub, Lawrence, Leadbetter, Leggat, Little, Mahon, Martel, McEachran, McNally, Merritt, Newberry, Oakman, O'Connor, O'Donnell, O'Hair, Osborn, Penczak, Pietras, Pisa, Rathburn, Riley, Robson, Rogell, Schefges, Schultz, Shawcross, Sheperd, Sisson, Smith, Steffens, Francis S. Thomas, Ralph E. Thomas, Truax, Van Antwerp, Van Hulle, Vreeland, Waldecker, Weinbaum, Charles N. Williams, R. K. Williams, Witherspoon, Wroblewski, Ziegler, Mr. Chairman (Kronk)-74. Nays: None. Mr. DONDERO. I also have a letter that I want to submit, but I am not offering it today. Congressman Pickett, I have a letter from Fort Worth, Tex., I am not offering for the record today in favor of the seaway. Mr. PICKETT. Who joined in the proposition with you? Mr. DONDERO. I will show it to you later. Mr. PICKETT. Good. I will be glad to have their views. The CHAIRMAN. We have as our first witness today Mr. George M. Humphrey. STATEMENT OF GEORGE M. HUMPHREY, PRESIDENT, M. A. HANNA CO., CLEVELAND, OHIO Mr. HUMPHREY. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Is it permissible for me to sit and read? The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Mr. HUMPHREY. Gentlemen, I had the pleasure and privilege of being here before you 10 months ago, and I am very glad to have the opportunity to return. If I may, I will just read a short statement and will then be very glad indeed to attempt to answer such questions as relate to our part of the business in this connection. About 10 months ago I appeared before this Committee to testify on this same subject. Everything I said at that time is applicable today. However, because you have especially requested that repetition be avoided, I am handing you a copy of my previous statement for the record, with the accompanying maps and charts, which are useful to an understanding of the subject but which were not reprinted in the transcript of last year's hearings. So that I will not repeat what I said before, I want to concentrate this morning on important developments since that time, first in our Labrador-Quebec project and then in the steel industry generally. And I will then be glad to answer any questions that any of you may have about this very important enterprise of ours. During the 1950 season we proved by drilling a substantial additional quantity of high-grade direct shipping open-pit ore. The measured reserves in the Labrador-Quebec concessions now stand at over 400,000,000 tons. This is nearly four-fifths as much direct-shipping open-pit ore as now remains in the taxable reserves on the Mesabi Range, according to the testimony of the Secretary of the Interior given before you a few days ago; and we still have explored only a small fraction of our concession area. I would like to interrupt this statement right there for just a moment to bring out and clarify and call to your attention the language that I have used: "high-grade direct-shipping open-pit ore." In all of your consideration about ore and in thinking about the kinds of ores and the tonnages that are described to you, it is highly important that you differentiate between the different kinds of ore. The reason it is highly important that you differentiate is because certain kinds of ore are rapidly expansible when you need them, and certain kinds cannot be rapidly expanded. Certain kinds take years to expand. Direct-shipping open-pit ore-high-grade ore-means the ore that we have been accustomed to have over these past 30 years up on the Mesabi Range, where you strip off the surface and where the ore is right there in the ground or in the hillside, and you can go in with a steam shovel and bail it out right into cars, and the cars go down to the lake, where it is hauled to the steel plants. Mr. ANGELL. How does the quality of this compare with the Mesabi ore? Mr. HUMPHREY. This Labrador ore is higher than the Mesabi. That sort of ore, during these last emergencies—that is, during the First World War and Second World War-we were able to expand very rapidly the production of. In my previous statement I covered that, and I will not repeat it; but you can see what the tonnages were and you can see that when all you have to do is strip off the top and go right in and bail it out and put it into cars and go off with it, that you can, by a few shovels and a few more cars, very rapidly expand your production. The next kind of ore you will hear a good deal about is the concentrate ore. Concentrate ore is of many kinds. You can start out with a simple washing and then have to grind it and then agglomerate it; and, the further you go in concentrating these ores, that means you cannot ship them out the way I have indicated. It is ore that has to have something done to it before it can be shipped. The more you concentrate it, the bigger the plants, the more expense, the more delay, and the more plant you have to build before you can ship anything. So that the expansibility of concentrate ore is very much slower than the expansibility of open-pit ore. Now, the next kind of ore you go to is underground ore. In underground ore the expansibility is practically nothing. It takes a long time to sink shafts and drive out entries and drive your crosscuts and open up underground ore. It is a long, tedious, and expensive job and cannot be rapidly done. In the first place, it requires the mobilization of a lot of men because the tons per man per day are lower. The cost is high, and the development work is very slow. We plan 3, 4, and 5 years ahead on underground operations just in our ordinary everyday business. So, as you will see from some figures in my previous testimony, in the last war, in regard to the expansion of your underground mines, they were actually expanded almost nothing at all. So that all the expansion that has fought these two wars for us has been that of high-grade direct-shipping open-pit ore. The same thing that is true of underground ore is true of these highly developed concentrates, like taconites. You gentlemen have all heard about taconites, and you have had the intricate processes explained to you and know the enormous, great big plants required. We are in the taconite business ourselves, and we are interested in the largest taconite deposit there is up there. I am not indicating in any way taconites are not going to be used and useful in this country. They are. We are going to use them. They are going to be necessary to be used; and, as time goes on over the next 15 or 20 years, we are going to use lots of taconite. I do not think the tonnages are going to get to be of large importance, but nevertheless there will be a development of taconites, and we ourselves are engaged in it. But the expansion of taconites is as bad as underground. It just cannot be done quickly. You are talking about years of development and years of plant building and enormous requirements of manpower and low ton-per-man production. after you get it. So, the one thing-and you must not be confused in these figuresthe one thing that is readily and quickly expansible when you need it is high-grade direct-shipping open-pit ore. Since I last appeared here, we have arranged for the financing of the undertaking without any Government aid. Iron Ore Co. of Canada is selling to a group of insurance companies $100,000,000 of bonds secured by a first mortgage, which provides for an additional $25,000,000 of bonds if necessary. The stockholders of Iron Ore Co. of Canada-who are Armco, National Steel, Republic Steel, Wheeling Steel, and Youngstown Sheet & Tube, in addition to Hanna and the Canadian interests-have invested or committed for an additional total of $100,000,000 in junior securities, making a total of $225,000,000 of capital structure available for the development of this enterprise. |