I will start out by repeating what others have said. We really can't tolerate any reductions in the tariff under the situation as it exists today. Sometimes history helps us a little bit, so let me think with you a little bit about something. The tariff we now like was established back in 1930 and has been perpetuated ever since. At that time nobody had dreamed about frozen concentrated orange juice. We didn't even really know about hot pack orange juice, but hot pack concentrate developed by the late '30s and frozen concentrate came in by the late '40s.

We built this industry on the fact that we had protection from foreign competition under the tariff and we had public that wanted good citrus products. We could produce them. They got them. We supplied the U.S. market. What was created for us by something we didn't ask for -- don't take it away from us when we ask you not to.

We don't really produce enough oranges today to more than supply the U.S. market. In the case of grapefruit, we're the premier producer in the world and we have, over the last 30 years, expanded sales in foreign markets. Unfortunately, we have expanded those sales to the detriment of our domestic sales. So we are selling no more fresh grapefruit today than we used to. Half of it is going to Japan and Europe and half of it is still staying here. We are selling more processed products.

But we don't really have the competition with grapefruits. Oranges is where our primary concern comes down. We can grow citrus as well as anyone and as cheaply as anyone. We can pack it and process it as cheaply as anyone. But we can't pick and haul it when we compete against cheap labor in other countries and when we compete with other countries who have unregulated industries. They don't have EPAs and they don't have OSHAs and that costs all of us -- I'm glad to see you smiling, Issi. It certainly is true.

We don't have the product to sell to the rest of the world so we don't really have a marketing position to say, "We'll give you something if you'll give us something." Our current forecast doesn't suggest we're going to. Let me talk about for just a moment what's been the result, I think, of the liberalized policies in both republican and democratic administrations over the last 30 years.

Where have we gotten to? Manufacturing capacity in this country is down dramatically. When you take out the wage rates of executive employees, wage rates corrected for inflation have actually gone down. Today all of American agriculture is in trouble. You haven't done us any favors by what's been done on liberalized trade. It makes no difference whether it's the Iowa corn farmer today or my friends in the tomato industry or those of us in the citrus business, it hasn't been a howling success.

The last thing I want to touch on from that standpoint is the trade deficit. You see an effect finally here -- in 1998 the highest deficits on record. The only way we sustained those is that foreign dollars have to come in -- they come in here to buy our government bonds. They come in and buy our stocks. They come in and buy our real estate. This industry -- they're coming in and competing with this industry here. We're seeing foreign money come in, whether it be from Japan or whether it be from Brazil or whether it be from France, and purchase processing facilities to where they are controlling a substantial chunk of the total industry. I don't believe that's what trade policy was designed to do. I think you need to think about that when we're going forward.

I don't believe these facts can be escaped. I think the facts you've heard today from a lot of special interest groups -- and we are special interest groups because we're none of us very big, but we have a little niche that we've fitted into over the years. So whether we're growing strawberries in Plant City or citrus here on the ridge or apples in Washington State or some naval oranges in the San Joaquin Valley, we've got special interests and I'm afraid you have to deal with us individually and on that basis. You can't lump us all together. We're not like a foreign farmer. We're not like a cotton grower. We're not that big and we have to be treated specially, so we have to ask for that special treatment.

Don't cut our tariffs any more unless you can offer us something in return. Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

MR. KELLY: Thank you, Mr. Griffith.