During the calendar year 1924 imports from Italy amounted to 71,762 dozen, or 44 per cent of the total, at an average value of $5.96 per dozen. Imports from England were 29,450 dozen, or approximately 18 per cent of the total, at an average value of $9.59. Total imports increased from 93,309 dozen in 1923, valued at $779,989, to 164,041 dozen in 1924, valued at $1,179,929, a quantitative gain of approximately 75 per cent. The latest available import data covering the months of January-April, 1925, are shown in Table 4, on page 5. For these four months imports from Italy amounted to 72,449 dozen, or about 76 per cent of the total, and the average value of Italian hats imported declined from $6.23 per dozen, on the comparable four months' period in 1924, to $5.46 per dozen in 1925. Imports from the United Kingdom for this same period were 12,353 dozen, or about 13 per cent of the total, and it should be noted that the average value increased from $9.64 to $13.07 per dozen. Italy, is, therefore, for the purposes of section 315, the principal competing country. FOREIGN PRODUCTION The center of production in Italy is Signa, near Florence. It was estimated (1924) that 1,500 persons were employed in the Signa district in establishments producing men's straw hats. The employees were about evenly divided between men and women. In England the principal centers of straw-hat production are St. Albans and Luton, towns near London. No estimate was obtained of the number of factories in operation, the volume of production, or the number of persons employed. The English manufacturers of men's straw hats in 1923-24 were suffering a business depression, and some of them were changing over to the manufacture of women's hats. _Types of hats produced in foreign factories._--Neither the English nor the Italian factories producing men's straw hats confine their business exclusively to men's sewed straw hats. Some of them also block and trim woven-hat bodies, such as panamas; some make women's and children's hats, and others produce, or deal in, felt hats. Nor is production of sewed straw hats confined to those made of sennit braids; hats are made of other braids as well. _Organization of foreign production._--The sennit braids used in the Italian straw hats exported to the United States are not made in Italy but are of Japanese origin, as are also the sennit braids used in the sewed straw hats made in the United States and in England.[2] [Footnote 2: Milan and fancy braids are plaited by Italian women in their homes, but this industry is not to be confused with the manufacture of sewed hats, the subject of this investigation.] In general, the foreign straw-hat factories do not bleach straw braids in their own establishments. In Italy, however, one concern not only bleached its own braids but also bleached braids for other straw-hat manufacturers.