Mr. FESSENDEN. I will state Presently. This paper says: “The material is of such richness its conversion is made with almost the same facility that lard is converted into oil.” And further on is a statement that those who distill it into oil have a great advantage over those who make oil from petroleum, because they do not pay so much internalrevenue duty. Now I want to take these 2 things together. Albertite takes 6 separate distillations before it enters into oil; petroleum takes one single distillation. This article has to go through 6 separate processes before it is made into oil. As I said before, when we were forming the internalrevenue bill the gentlemen who manufacture this oil at Port far as I have Presented it to the Senate. land and the men who manufacture oil from petroleum had a conference and they agreed upon what the just difference between the 2 was and should be, and it was so fixed by their agreement, and at that very time the men engaged in the manufacture of coal oil in WestVirginia and that section of the country in sisted upon it that there ought to be nothing at all upon this, it was so expensive a manufacture; and yet here is a statement that it can be converted into oil with the ease of lard. That is the fairness and honesty of this statement. Then, it is said that these persons have been around the commissioner and around the senate trying to get Albertite in at a low duty. That is a positive misstatement. It is evident the writer did not know anything about the facts. This charge is not true, and does not begin to be true. It was put in by the commissioner of his own motion; nobody asked him to do it; and I did not know anything about it myself until this controversy came up. It is further stated here that the oil sells for 70 cents a gallon, and sold last year for $150. The agent informs me that it is selling now at 63 cents, and if you take off the duty it brings it down to 53. It never sold for $1 50. It has been down as low as 30 cents, and may come down that low again at any time. This paper is a positive misstatement in all particulars. Under these circumstances, I really must ask the Senate to reconsider this i. o not ask them to keep it at 50 cents a ton, but I ask them to leave it with other coals which they have put at $1 50 a ton. As the agent informs me, a duty of 2 dollars a ton put on this article would shut up the factory. pel them to cease business altogether or remove to the other side of the line and set it up in NewBrunswick, thus losing to the Government 80 or 90,000 dollars a year revenue derived from the duty on the imported coal and the internalrevenue tax paid by this concern. I have no doubt the fact is so from the operations I have witnessed and what I know of the history of the company. To put anything like this duty on it would be entire destruction; and really, under the circumstances, I feel that I have a right to ask the Senate to adopt the amendment I have proposed.