498 AGRICULTURAL APPROPRL\TION BILL, 1924. 



accounting systems and arriving at an ability to determine what are 

 ths true costs in the packing industry. In that we have been delayed 

 for several reasons : 



First, because during the first year of our operations, we found 

 that we wore in competition with almost everybody else to get 

 auditors, and it was virtually impossible for us to get more than just 

 a few auditors to deal with the pressing questions m connection with 

 commission rates and similar matters. It has only been during the ] 

 last two or three months that we have been able to go into the field j 

 of accounting to the extent of getting enough auditors to organize 4 

 a force that would look forward to a studv of the accounting systems. < 

 It seems that durmg the past few montlis there has been a sort of ) 

 let-up in the demand for accountants, partly due to the summer ?' 

 season and partly due to the commercial depression, and through the 

 medium of civil-service examinations we have been able to get hold of 

 a number of men who seemed to be v-ery competent, so that the work 

 of studying the packers' actounting systems is now started. We 

 have been under a good deal of pressure in the last few months, and 

 are right now, on account of complaints having been filed as to 

 commission rates. We have ta^ken those complaints and have been 

 working up the information, but at the present time we have the 

 question of reasonable commission rates to determine at Chicago, 

 St. Paul, Omaha, Kansas City, Fort Worth, Denver, and Portland. 

 We have also the question of certain stockyard charges to determine 

 at Peoria, 111., Omaha, Nebr., Chicago, and Milwaukee, and in a 

 number of yards the companies have taken up with us informally the 

 matter of certain changes in their rates, knowing that if they were 

 to present the proposed changes formall}' they might rmi up against 

 susjjensions. 



During the early part of the administration of the act there were 

 a num])cr of reductions in stockyard rates particularly, but recently, 

 on account of the very great advance in corn, there has been an 

 attempt, which looks almost like a concerted movement, to raise the 

 rates on corn in the stockyards generally. Chicago, Milwaukee, and 

 Buffalo have proposed an increase of 15 cents per bushel. We have 

 suspended the Chicago and Milwaukee increases, and they are await- 

 ing a hearing now. At Buffalo there is a slightly difl'erent condition 

 of affairs, because of the fact that when they mcreased their corn 

 rate, -they reduced their hay rate, and it may be that they have an 

 equity that is different from that of the other yards. In addition, a 

 number of the yards have introduced a new charge this year that had 

 not previously boon made, called a "rewoigliing charge." That is a 

 charge which is imposed upon speculators operating in the speculator 

 division for the service of weigliing their animals. 



That is sometimes known as a reweighing charge and it is some- 

 tmies known as a second weighing charge. That is to say, the specu- 

 lators buy the bulk of their animals from commission men, and in the 

 past the stockyards have been supported almost exclusively from 

 yardage ciiarges and feeding ciiarges imposed upon the first handling 

 throu<^h commission m(>n, plus a feeding charge to the s|)oculatoi*s, 

 but without auy yardage charge to the speculators at all. The stock- 

 yard (ompanies have conceived the idea that that is a discrimination, 

 and it also means a possible increase in their revenues. The question 

 that we are trying to work out now is how to deal with the reweighing 



