Bureau of Foreign Commerce and the Business and Defense Services Administration have access to this information and representatives of both attend the public hearings. At these hearings private individuals, representatives of business firms, and trade and industry associations representatives have an opportunity to express their views and present information regarding the items being considered for possible negotiation with other countries. Briefs submitted to the Tariff Commission in connection with the peril-point hearings are also available for consultation and are consulted when they cover ground not covered in Committee for Reciprocity Information briefs.

To facilitate the presentation of these departmental positions in the interdepartmental bodies and to impress the other participating agencies with the validity of the Commerce views, the Business and Defense Services Administration commodity experts are invited to attend appropriate meetings of the country committees and the Trade Agreements Committee where they orally supplement their written memoranda explaining the Commerce position and summarizing the views of the affected industries.

Dissents to Trade Agreements Committee action: Decisions of the Trade Agreements Committee with respect to both listing and determination of concessions to be offered by the United States are reported by the Commerce representative on the Committee to the Bureau of Foreign Commerce and the Business and Defense Services Administration. In the case of decisions not in conformity with the Commerce position, the Bureau of Foreign Commerce and the Business and Defense Services Administration make recommendations to the Secretary as to whether he should register a formal dissent to the President against the action approved by the Trade Agreements Committee and recommended to the President by that body.

Negotiations: The nature and extent of Commerce Department representation on the United States delegation which conducts the actual tariff negotiations depends to a great extent on the request for designations received from the State Department. Ordinarily this request asks Commerce Department to supply personnel qualified to carry out specified functions and to staff specific negotiating teams. The chief demand is for officers with knowledge of the tariffs, trade regulations, trade and language of the respective countries to staff the negotiating teams. For this reason, most of the Commerce appointees are country officers from the Bureau of Foreign Commerce Geographic Divisions. However, it is usually the practice to include several Business and Defense Services Administration men who combine commodity competence with a general foreign trade background, and who serve on negotiating teams after some preconference briefing.

Moreover, it is customary for Commerce Department to appoint one senior Business and Defense Services Administration officer to the delegation to advise on overall commodity problems, and supply liaison with the Industry Divisions of the Business and Defense Services Administration.

It should be borne in mind that in addition, most of the Tariff Commission officers designated to serve on a United States delegation are commodity experts, and that Agriculture customarily supplies several qualified technicians. In this way, a delegation has available for onthe-ground consultation a considerable staff of commodity specialists, which usually includes experts in the major commodity fields such

as agriculture, textiles, chemicals, iron and steel, ceramics, and machinery.

Usually the Trade Agreements Committee forms a part of the delegation, and moves to the site of the negotiations shortly after the opening of the conference. In this manner the Commerce member of the Trade Agreements Committee, or his alternate, is included in the delegation. It should be noted, however, that he represents the Department, not merely a part of it, and that his latitude of action has been largely established prior to his departure from Washington.

Escape clause and section 22 cases: Since several questions have been raised in connection with adjustments by the United States in its trade agreement commitments under the escape clause and section 22 provisions of the trade agreements legislation, it may be helpful to add a few remarks on Commerce procedure in this field.

When the Tariff Commission recommends action by the Presidentwhether under the escape clause of the Trade Agreements Act or under section 22 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act-a number of the executive agencies are called upon for opinions as to the advisability of such action from their respective points of view.

So far as the Department of Commerce is concerned, every such report sent to us by the Chief Executive is given the most thorough and deliberate study by our commodity specialists familiar with the given product, as well as by those of our staff concerned with general commercial policy and with international relations. The recommendations of those technicians are then carefully reviewed by both the Assistant Secretaries for Domestic Affairs and International Affairs, and finally by the Secretary of Commerce.

We believe that this procedure of careful consideration of every Tariff Commission report referred to the Department of Commerce, first by technicians and then by policy officers on both the domestic and the international sides, and finally by the head of the Department, insures that the opinion then sent by Commerce to the White House represents our fairest and most conscientious judgment on each case. Mr. HARRISON. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Martin, a member of the staff, would like to ask a few questions.

Mr. MCCLELLAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. E. MARTIN. Mr. Secretary, do you have any comment on the charge that was previously made in this hearing that in your Department the staff activities in preparing the list of articles for negotiation that is, the list of import items on which the United States might grant concessions--is improperly concentrated in the Bureau of Foreign Commerce to the practical exclusion of the BDSA?

Mr. MCCLELLAN. Yes, sir. I would like very much to offer a comment concerning the charge.

I submit from the statement I have just read, to which both the domestic side of the Department of Commerce and the international side of the Department of Commerce are subscribing, that the charge is unwarranted and untrue.

Mr. E. MARTIN. Well, Mr. Secretary, I do not want to question your judgment, but in my experience there is usually something which provokes these charges. They are not picked out of the air. I wonder perhaps if the procedure might have been changed recently.

Mr. MCCLELLAN. Maybe I can speak to that, sir. I have only been in the Department of Commerce a little more than a year. The As

sistant Secretary of Commerce for Domestic Affairs, Mr. Frederick Mueller, has been there just a month shorter than I. I can only speak for my work in the Department. I can say to you that Mr. Mueller and I from time to time have had differences of opinion in connection with policy, but not once to my recollection have we had to go to the Secretary to resolve them.

I would like to say further, to make this record clear, that it is our disposition to recognize the basic fact that we in the Department of Commerce are speaking for one Department. When it comes to policy matters, it would be ridiculous for us to separate into fragments in the Department and take different views. If there are differences between us, they must be resolved within the Department. It is obvious in the light of the tensions today in the international field that sometimes, particularly in relation to foreign trade, exports and imports, problems arise that require careful study in order to have a clear understanding and a meeting of minds.

This matter has been explored so far that as of today, and as of many months past, I would not personally think of sending out a letter to a member of industry in the United States in connection with a foreign trade matter in which I felt, as I usually do, that domestic and foreign policy are both involved, without clearing that letter with the BDSA and the Assistant Secretary for Domestic Affairs.

I only say this for one reason: We recognize the problems that emerge here and that are pointed up by your question. While there have been differences of opinion, and we have had sometimes in BDSA and BFC different points of view, we have a liaison between those two agencies which we have encouraged and, incidentally, improved during the past 12 months, so that more and more the differences of opinion, usually based on lack of adequate understanding on one side or the other, are resolved at lower and lower levels, and it is less and less frequent that Mr. Mueller and I have to get into the act in order to pull the facts together so that agreement can be obtained.

I would not contend that there never has been an error made in the Department, of course, on either side of it, but I suggest to you, sir, that the operation today in the Department of Commerce of the Bu reau of Foreign Commerce and the BDSA is one of healthy coopera tion. There is opportunity for every member of the team at any level to express his viewpoint fully and to have it examined, but along the way we determine a position policywise which we later all support.

Mr. E. MARTIN. That satisfies me on the question, Mr. Secretary. Mr. MCCLELLAN. Thank you, sir.

Mr. E. MARTIN. Please do not think that my questions presuppose a point of view. They may seem pointed.

Mr. MCCLELLAN. I understand. I appreciate that.

May I say one other thing: I am not merely expressing an opinion. I think I am informed enough, and I hope I am, to report the facts on what we are doing. When it is an opinion I will so state it.

Mr. E. MARTIN. Now, witnesses have complained of the Bureau of the Census being noncooperative with regard to assemblying or maintaining adequate statistical classifications of imports. At least two industries have been before this committee saying that they have tried to get cooperation from the Bureau of the Census without any success. Now, why cannot Census be more cooperative with these American industries?

Mr. MCCLELLAN. Well, sir, I can give you just the simplest answer I know. I find that the Bureau of the Census wishes to cooperate fully with what we in the international side determine is the requirement in terms of information for sending out to industry in the statistical areas that relate to foreign rade. I can tell you also that less than a year ago we were advised that there would have to be a cutback in some of the statistical reporting previously done, and this took place. Later part of it was restored, that is, since the last budget received by the Department of Commerce came into operation on July 1. I think there is a distinction of terms here. What is, I think, intended is that industry is unhappy with the statistics presently available from the Bureau of the Census related to imports, and we support their complaint, but the problem is merely one of funds.

Now, in our last request for funds, in appropriations, we got some help which has been of benefit to the Bureau of the Census, enabling it to improve its statistical reporting. However, in my humble opinion, we still have some distance to go to do all that would be justified toward the further development of foreign trade on a two-way basis to the extent I think is possible and practical.

Mr. E. MARTIN. Who told you you will have to cut back your foreign-trade statistics?

Mr. MCCLELLAN. Well, it came from the Bureau of the Census on the basis of their budget, and we were compelled to recognize the merits of it. When we were given the privilege and did examine the factors, we decided we simply had to do it. There was no money to pay for the work they had been doing, and it simply had to be cut back.

Mr. E. MARTIN. Was the Census Bureau's budget actually reduced? Mr. MCCLELLAN. I believe that it was; yes, sir.

Mr. E. MARTIN. Materially?

Mr. MCCLELLAN. Yes; enough to call for a curtailment. You see, they way they worked-again, I am going back to the year preceding the year when I came into Commerce-we had a form of attrition placed upon us in some of the sections of the Department because of the way the budget operated during the year. We had to cut back in the number of employees progressively so that we wound up the year with less people than we began with. In that period of attrition we also had to cut back on some of the functions of the Department. Mr. E. MARTIN. Was it the Bureau of the Budget that forced the cutback on you?

Mr. MCCLELLAN. No, sir.

Mr. E. MARTIN. It was the Appropriations Committees? Mr. MCCLELLAN. That is right. It was the AppropriationsMr. E. MARTIN. Pardon me-Congress acting largely through the Appropriations Committees?

Mr. MCCLELLAN. The budget appropriations by Congress that year for the Department of Commerce caused both the Bureau of Foreign Commerce and the Bureau of the Census to limit what we had been doing formerly.

Mr. E. MARTIN. Did Congress reduce materially the amount that the Bureau of the Budget recommended for these services?

Mr. MCCLELLAN. We are going back 2 years, now, and I would only say from memory and my recollection of this is accurate "Yes; they did." However, I want to report to you, sir, that this year Í I

appeared before the committees of the Congress on the request for the budget and was extremely pleased at the response we got. We have restored many of the things that I thought should be restored, but not all.

We have no complaint, I assure you, on what the Congress did for us, on my side, at least, of the Department of Commerce, in operations this year, and we are doing things better this year than we did last year.

Mr. E. MARTIN. But in prior years you testified that Congress did reduce the recommendation of the Bureau of the Budget?

Mr. MCCLELLAN. That is my recollection, and I think that could be determined if you will permit me to ask a question or two of my associates.

Mr. HARRISON. You can place it in the record later, Mr. Secretary. Mr. MCCLELLAN. I cannot answer that now.

Mr. HARRISON. You can put it in the record when you get back to your office. You can insert a statement showing the Bureau of the Budget recommendations for the statistical services.

Mr. MCCLELLAN. Very well, sir.

Mr. E. MARTIN. Would you put in such statement the final appropriation of the Congress for, say, the last 4 or 5 years?

Mr. MCCLELLAN. We would be very happy to get you that information. That is the best approach to it, Mr. Chairman, because my memory goes only to the time I entered the Department. (The information requested follows:)

Statement showing Budget Bureau recommendation and final appropriation by the Congress for the statistical services item (“Salaries and expenses, Bureau of the Census”), which includes the foreign trade statistical program

In addition, the Budget Bureau recommended an additional $100,000 and the Congress approved an additional $87,500 specifically for the foreign trade program in the Second Supplemental Appropriation Act, 1956. * Estimated.

Mr. E. MARTIN. On this statistical practice, Mr. Secretary, do you consider that the sampling methods with regard to imports statistics are dependable? I mean, are they dependable indicators of the actual trade?

Mr. MCCLELLAN. In the main; yes. I think that again we would have to qualify the answer on the basis of which ones you are speaking about. I would say on behalf of the Bureau of the Census that they have a very strong aversion to using any sampling for purposes of reporting which in their judgment result in a distortion, or could result in a distortion, of what is intended. Therefore, I think that we could say that no sampling method is quite as accurate as an overall testing by complete coverage, but no such coverage as that is practical.

So, you have to say at what point does the sampling method become reliable, and it is our purpose to use it only to the extent that it meets the test problem, and serves the purpose intended.