OLEOMARGARINE. 727 



consumers there are the olive-oil producers. Those countries are talk- 

 ing of discriminating against cotton-seed oil, beginning a few years 

 ago with a proposed tax in Italy, and followed up by a proposition 

 made in France and one also in Germany, and an effort has been made 

 to crowd our product out of those countries, because of its competition 

 with the other edible oils, olive oil and, in Russia, linseed and other 

 oils. Eussia does crowd it out, because she admits of no competition 

 with linseed oil. Russia has in prospect the production of cotton-seed 

 oil, and she produces now a small quantity of it. 



Our fear is that if our friends, the pure butter people, are successful 

 in driving out the butter industry, or at any rate in putting upon it an 

 additional tax, whether it kills the industry or not, that puts such a 

 stigma upon our product, which foreign countries are buying, that they 

 will not continue to buy of us. The proposition has been made to 

 exclude American oil out of France in order that the Egyptian seed 

 shall be crushed in France and cotton oil made in France. If it should 

 be stated that the American oil was regarded as such a harmful prod- 

 uct in America as to be taxed at home, the French deputies would not 

 be slow to take it as a chance and crowd us out of France. 



We are, then, confined to the home market, which consists of lard com- 

 petition. It is not a violent supposition, that if the butter producers 

 have been able to legislate us out of France, that the hog people would 

 be, if those things conld come to pass, able to legislate us out of com- 

 petition with them in this country, and the cotton-seed industry would 

 be dead. It is hardly to be anticipated, but it is possible. 



Mr. ALLEN. What effect do you think the prohibition of the manufac- 

 ture of oleomargarine would have upon the price of your oil, per gallon 

 or pound, in a general way? 



Mr. ALLISON. I hardly know how to answer that question, sir, 

 except to say that it deprives us of a market that is consuming between 

 5 and 10 per cent of our production of our best production and pays 

 us more money for it than any other channel into which our product 

 goes. We would then sell what we call butter oil at the same price 

 that we sell some other oil, the yellow oil being butter oil. 



Mr. ALLEN. What is the price of your butter oil; what do you sell 

 it at to day in New York ? 



Mr. ALLISON. Forty to 45 cents, depending entirely upon the qual- 

 ity and the production of the plant. 



Mr. ALLEN. Forty to 45 cents a gallon? 



Mr. ALLISON. Yes, sir; as against 37 cents for the other oil. 



Mr. WILLIAMS. And the 7 to 8 cents additional makes three to four 

 dollars a barrel? 



Mr. ALLISON. One of the gentlemen here has a sample of white oil. 

 I am sorry that we have not any sample of the butter oil, but we did 

 not have any idea that you would want it, and did not bring it. But 

 I have a sample of the white oil here. (The witness here produced a 

 bottle of the white oil spoken of and exhibited it to the committee.) 



Mr. COONEY. What do you mean by butter oil; is that the oil that 

 goes into the butterine? 



Mr. ALLISON. That is the name for the highest grade of butter oil. 

 It is a special oil and is a kind made from selected seed, and is the kind 

 of oil that goes into the butterine. 



Mr. NEVILLE. How do you figure that this bill would drive the oleo- 

 margarine out of the market? 



Mr. ALLISON. I do not figure that at all. I did not state that as a 

 fact of my own knowledge. I asserted what the butteriue people have 



(*U5) 



