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to the level which prevailed in the period from 1923 to 1929 when approximately 450,000 persons were engaged in the industry as com pared with the May 1933 rate given by Mr. Green as around 350,000 on 48 hours a week (Record III-I-7; statement of Mr. Green, page 6; Record III-I-5).

The isolated figures cited by Mr. McMahon and Mr. Green as to numbers employed and hours reflecting conditions as of varying dates in the past half year were all based upon official government and other public sources. Hence, the issue resolves itself into a statistical one of determining the necessary and feasible hours and shifts for handling the present level of cotton textiles production and taking care of the seasonal fluctuations and spurts in demand for the products of the industry. An exhaustive analysis of this sort was carried out by our Research and Planning Division (Dr. Sachs), and the results thereof, submitted in the course of the hearing to President Green of the American Federation of Labor and to Dr. Wolman of the Labor Ad visory Board, were uncontroverted by the former and concurred in by the latter.

Briefly, in the course of the depression, employment in the Cotton Textile Industry has declined from 425,000 in 1929 to a low mark in March of this year of 314,000, or 26%. Since then, under the im petus of the recovery policies of the Government, this industry, like other consumers goods industries, has been enjoying a sharp revival, with rising employment, having reached 346,000 for the month of May, and around 400,000 in June.

With productive operations in June around the 1929 level, and this month above it, it is clear that hours and shifts should be so fixed as to allow a general average of production at least as high as 1929. In that year there were processed 3,370,000,000 pounds of cotton, or 5% below the peak year of 1927. This was at the rate of 65,700,000 pounds per full working week, taking the working year as 51.3 work ing weeks. The labor required in 1929 to process the 65,700,000 pounds of cotton was in man-hours 20,600,000 for an effective working week of 49 hours. Under the proposed code, limiting the week to 40 hours, the effective average working week, allowing for those manufac turers who will not be able to obtain the maximum, would be 39 hours. Hence, dividing the 20,600,000 man-hours by the 39 effective hours 3/?elds 528,000, as the employees required for producing an average 1929 weekly level of cotton production. In other words, the 40-hour limit would not only call back to work those who became unemployed since 1939, but would call for 13% more employees than the average in the peak year of 1927 when 467,000 were employed. It is furthermore noteworthy that this computation only provides for the 1929 aver age and does not make any allowance whatsoever for the seasonal peaks or sudden spurts of demand which according to the experience of the past decade may well carry production from 10 to 20% above any apparently well-established level. To provide for such a 15% spurt above the normal at any given period would require the full utilization of the 10 to 15% increase in labor efficiency that has developed in the depression under conditions of the very long hours which have obtained hitherto. Accordingly, the industry under the 40-hour week would presently absorb the available corps of textile workers and assuming a continuation of the present trend would pro