188 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.

Another example of the need for closer cooperative action in promoting
 the control by American manufacturers of the distribution
of their product in foreign markets is furnished by the trade in
American canned salmon in Argentina. The market there for highgrade
 salmon is supplied from England, through the local importing
houses, by two prominent British companies. They have established
 their brands and have a general reputation for goods of fine
quality. The salmon they sell is packed on the Pacific coast, but
the tins bear the firms’ labels, with nothing on them to indicate the
origin of the goods. Some cheap grades of salmon have been marketed
 in Argentina under American brands. It has not been possible,
 in the face of the competition from the established brands of
the English firms, to create a demand for high-grade salmon under
American brands. This is largely due to the belief, on the part of
consumers, that England is the only source of high-grade salmon,
and that American-canned salmon is an inferior product.
The Argentine import duty on canned fish is high, and being specific
 and levied on the weight of the goods the same amount of duty
falls on the low-grade as the high-grade salmon. This means that
the duty forms a larger relative proportion of the cost in marketing
the cheaper goods, and prevents their being retailed to consumers
at a proportionately lower price, grade considered. than the more
expensive kinds.
It was the opinion of an informant who had long studied the
question that the interests of the American fish packers in the Argentine
 market would be best promoted by an organization controlled
by them, which would direct the distribution to retailers of all goods
packed by them. He advocated the establishment of a selling combination
 which would handle the entire export business of the principal
 salmon packers in the Puget Sound and Alaska regions. This
agency would establish its own brands and market everything under
them. The goods would be packed for it, according to uniform
specifications, by its member companies. By means of a propaganda
 campaign, vigorously pushed in Argentina, a demand for all
grades of canned salmon, bearing the agency brands, would be created,
 and it would be demonstrated to the Argentine consumer that
he could get ‘‘American’’ canned salmon in all grades. By securing
direct control of the distribution of their high-grade product, the
American salmon packers would acquire that portion of the canned
salmon trade which is under the present Argentine tariff conditions
the most profitable part of the business. It would also be directly
interested in attempts to extend the sale of all grades of canned
salmon in competition with other kinds of fish products.
What has been sald of lumber and canned salmon applies with
equal force to a number of other lines of goods. Thus canned goods