7
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TLC.O. 885
21 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
G
CHAIRMAN: You do not anticipate that ladies are to submit to the risk of having their hats, or parts of their hats, confiscated from their heads without a considerable outery, do you ?—A. They did in America, but they have stamped it out there now in most of the States.
Q. They did, did they -A. They collared them; it is very amusing reading, because they got scratched, and their faces slapped, and all sorts of things; but they have stopped it.
Q. There is just one other question I want to ask you. You say that you would welcome any preliminary step. Has a Bill ever been suggested?-A. Pro- vided it was in any degree effective.
Q. I want to put to you this suggestion for a Bill. Supposing the importation for sale, exchange, or private use of feathers into this country was prohibited unless the importer could prove that they did not come from a country in which their exportation was prohibited-A. I think that would be a splendid thing, if you could bring in a Bill such as Australia has done.
Q. I was putting the Australian model to you.-A. If you could do what Australia has done I would not ask for any more, and then I would set to imme- diately and get the various countries to prohibit export. I would be very pleased if you could do what Australia did; they do not admit the importation of any feathers the exportation of which is prohibited in any country throughout the world.
Q. That would be a welcome step forward-A. Very welcome, yes. Mr. FAGAN: I think you ought to insist on the introduction of the words "importation for millinery purposes."
Mr. Jousson: I do not quite see that the private collector should be allowed to have them.
Mr. FAGAN: I do not think any impediment should be put in the way of the advance of knowledge.
Mr. JOHNSON :
Private collectors "-that is for purposes of scientific research? Mr. FAGAN: I think the private collectors as private collectors if they are serious should be encouraged.
WITNESS: Who is to stop them?
CHAIRMAN: In this last suggestion we have made the feather is illegally ex- ported, or the skin is illegally exported from the country unless the man who exports it has a licence from the Government in question to export it. Surely it is no hard- ship either to the milliner or to the private collector to say, prove that you have got that skin in accordance with the law of the country from Unless you can which it comes you have no right to it?" That would not be a hardship on the collector, would it!
Mr. FAGAN: No, the collector would then have to get a licence or permit. Mr. OGILVIE-GRANT: Suppose you did it in New Guinea, you would have to get a licence from the Governor of Papua.
CHAIRMAN: The Australian Act has a licence clause of that kind.
Dr. HARMER: I should suggest that if for any reason it might be desirable to put in any words, it might be possible to improve on those which Mr. Fagan has suggested as to the idea of fire-screens and that sort of thing; it would perhaps be better to say" for decorative purposes
Mr. FAGAN: I quite agree.
than" for millinery purposes."
Mr. OGILVIE-GRANT: It would make it a little wider.
Dr. HARMER: There is a question I should like to ask Mr. Buckland, as it seems to me an important point. He began by stating that the only birds which really came into the question as far as this country was concerned were the ostrich, the egret, and the bird of paradise.
WITNESS: As regards their money value, regarded from the trade point of view, but not their intrinsic value.
Q That statement appears to me to be entirely in conflict with the statements made in this little book, where they say that the plumage of practically all bright- coloured birds is of importance to the trade.-A. It is of no importance to our trade.
Q. That is not what the trade say.-A. It is of importance to the individual in England. I admit that; it is important to Mr. Downham, or rather the firms who are the buyers, because they make the profits, but it is not worth twopence to the wage-earning community in England for the reason that, as I told you, all the ostrich feathers are dyed and dressed in Paris.
Q. The ostrich feathers do not seem to matter.-A. are used for making these "cheap mounts" which are made in Germany; they All these bright feathers get a duck's wing and they gun a little piece of a tanager on to it, or anything else. That is all done in Germany. These men make the profit.
Q. If all the trade is carried on in Germany it is difficult to account for the hostility of the English trade.-A. The trade in England are not hostile to it; the milliners would tell you that they do not care for these high priced things. It is the individual who sees his profit in jeopardy, and these are the people who fight against it. As to the whole of the value of the fancy feathers, I went to the Custom House and tried to get the latest reports. I could not get them for 1910, but for 1909 the whole of the imports of fancy feathers from abroad, that is, of course, exclusive of the ostrich, were £96,851. The amount of the import of egrets was £31,000, and the amount of the birds of paradise, with the crown pigeons and the parrots and cockatoos and other birds from New Guinea -the whole of the Dutch Possessions-in the Indian seas-was limited to £46,000. Now, £46,000 and £31,000 is £77,000, and those two items make up £77,000 out of £96,000, leaving about £20,000 of other plumage. These are Custom House figures.
Mr. ILLINGWORTH: That is C96,000 worth of raw material-A. Raw material of fancy feathers.
Q. How is that worked up, and what is the probable number of people employed in working it up —A. These all come from wild places, for instance there are men stationed-
QI am referring to this £96,000 worth which comes into the Port of London : what happens to that and how many people are employed upon that -- A. Eighty per cent. are sent abroad at once.
Q. Immediately?--A. Immediately they are sold 80 per cent. go abroad to be made up.
Q. We have therefore eliminated £80,000 roughly, leaving £16,000 in this country. The profit comes in purely in the sale!~A. The £16,000 do not remain here, because the £16,000, as I say, which include tanagers, motmots, or any gaudy plumage like that, goes to Germany to be gummed on to an ordinary duck's wing, or a goose's wing.
Q. So that their chief argument that it would be a cause of unemployment falls absolutely to the ground-A. They spend very little in employment.
Q. I want to get out a certain definite point; so that the £96,000 is purely a matter of an ordinary commercial transaction, and it would be the loss of profit on the £96,000-A. That is it.
Q. And no unemployment would be caused by the prohibition of these particular feathers -A. They say there are 5,000 people employed.
Q. Do you give that statement I have put to you as a fact—A.
Yes, that
is a fact-with the exception that they say there are 5,000 people employed upon them. Of course, to a very very limited extent there is something done here; some of the feathers come in such a natural state that they can be manipulated here for wear, but 80 per cent, of the feathers sold now are sold in the London Feather Market to go straight abroad, and there is very little in wages or anything else which comes by way of benefit to the English people.
CHAIRMAN: Eighty per cent. goes abroad and the other 20 per cent, remains in this country?--A. Yes, because 20 per cent. can be manipulated without any trouble.
Q. That is a very small amount, less than £20,000, but that 20 per cent. does employ some labour here -A. not see how it can. Paris employs in the dyeing and the dressing of these feathers It employs some; they say 5,000 people, but I do 50,000. The dyeing and dressing of ostrich feathers, one would imagine, is not a special gift peculiar to the French people, and if the feather people here would teach the orphan boys and girls in this country the dyeing and dressing of these feathers they would create a real industry, and let the other things go.
Q. This does not include ostrich feathers - A. No.
Q. You are not prepared with any evidence to refute the statement that 5,000 people are employed upon these feathers in this country?— A. No; I have not thought it worth while, because 80 per cent. goes abroad. The benefit which labour gets from these feathers is obtained on the Continent. There is only one thing I should like to say; it is rather a delicate matter and it may not be true, and if it were true I know you would treat it as it deserves to be treated, but I have seen