HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 177 
steps the Grain Dealers’ Association of Berlin (Verein Berliner Getreide und Pro- 
ducten Handler) has requested me, and I have consented to lay before the Depart- 
ment for such action of reference as it may elect, a plain statement of the case from 
the standpoint of the German importers, in the hope that some solution of the diffi- 
culty may be found and the remedy applied before grain-export trade of our coun- 
try to Continental Europe shalt be still more seriously compromised. 
Until quite recently the wheat imports of Germany from the United States have 
been shipped mainly from the port of New York, where the inspection authorities 
refused to grade any lot of wheat as of a new crop unless the whole of it were actually 
sold. But certain other rival shipping markets have been less scrupulous in this 
respect, and have graded as new-crop wheat cargoes containing as high as 40 or even 
50 per cent of grain from the harvest of the previous year. Whenever, as was the 
case during the past season, the new-crop wheat is in general distinctly superior in 
quality to that of last year, such an admixture of old grain changes and depreciates 
more or lessseriously the value of the cargo, and unloads upon importers who have 
ordered and sold before arrival wheat of the new crop, a mixture which their cus- 
tomers often either refuse to accept, or if they. do so, claim discounts which entail a 
net loss on the transaction to the importer. 
But it appears from a statement of a member of the New York Produce Exchange 
that the inspection authorities at that city, moved by the loss of grain-export trade 
through diversion of other American ports, and by the difficulty of obtaining new 
wheat on account of the general pate of mixing at interior points, have this 
your decided to lower their standard and certify as new crop all wheat containing as 
igh as 80 per cent of this year’s product. The German importers claim therefore 
that there is no longer any security or meaning in an American certificate of new-crop 
grain, and this not only adds another black mark to the commercial repute of our 
countrymen, but puts a trenchent weapon into the hands of the agents who seek to 
undermine and discredit our grain exportsin favor of those from Argentina, Australia, 
Russia, Hungary, India, and other wheat-exporting couritries. 
Irregularities of this kind are difficult and humiliating for a consul to explain or 
defend because they constitute, according to European standards, a plain violation 
of the integrity of international trade. An official certificate which deliberately 
states one thing and means another, which enables the seller to deceive a purchaser 
and evade the plain elementary condition of a contract should, it would seem, have 
no place in a branch of commerce so important and so dependent upon good faith as 
the wheat-export trade of the United States. In Europe a board of trade certificate 
as to grade, age, and quality of grain, is absolute, and admits of no equivocation or 
misstatement of facts. If a similar standard of integrity can not be maintained in the 
markets of the United States, the consequent effect of such laxity upon American 
cereal-export trade can not fail to be serious and permanent. 
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
Frank H. Mason, Consul-General. 
I would like to say that this is the letter which has been received 
to-day, and I simply brought it in because it happened to be at hand. 
We have been receiving these complaints for years past. This is an 
allegation with reference to the mixture of an old and new crop, but 
the principal allegations have been with reference to the deterioration 
of the grain in the hold of the vessel, and that deterioration we found 
was due largely to the question of moisture. We found that ordinary 
inspection, such as is used at the different ports of shipment—an inspec- 
tion simply by the sense of touch—could not in all cases be relied upon 
to offer a safe guide. Therefore, after long investigation, we have 
invented a machine which will accurately and quickly gauge the water 
contents of the grain; and I will show you briefly the working of that. 
But, first, I wish to show you two samples of corn, one of which con- 
tains 16.71 per cent of moisture, and the other contains 15.20, a differ- 
ence of less than 2 per cent of moisture. This grain has been kept in 
this condition for months without deterioration [exhibiting]. As you 
will see, this is moldy and rotten [exhibiting]. 
The Cuarrman. With less than 2 per cent of difference? 
Mr. Covitie. Less than 2 per cent of difference. This illustrates 
to you how difficult it is by sense of touch alone; but by our machine 
co Aa——12 
