320 BEPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.
the case of the one active export selling agency, the Redwood Export
Co., its facilities are made available on a commission basis, to outside
producers, and sales are made for nearly all the outside concerns in
the redwood industry. In other projected selling combinations, such
as that for North Carolina pine, it is proposed that a uniform selling
commission be charged on all sales, whether of members or outsiders,
and that any particular advantage derived through membership be
limited to a voice in the management and a return on the capital
invested in the selling company. In case several outsiders should not
care to export through a combination controlled by business. rivals,
but still desired the facilities obtainable through a larger scale of
operations than each, individually, was able to secure, they could
establish a rival export combination. The present lumber situation
indicates, because of the wide diversity of interests, and the temperamental
 inability of any considerable number of American lumber
manufacturers to work in harmony, that no one export combination
is likely to include in its membership more than three-quarters of the
production available for the export trade in that wood. For example,
while the Redwood Export Association is said to control 80 per cent
of the export trade in redwood, its stockholders control about one-half
of the redwood cut. Most of the projected selling combinations, in
order to attain a successful volume of business are counting on being
able to make sufficiently attractive terms to outsiders to secure the
handling of their export business.
The advantages which are sought through the establishment of
export selling combinations in the lumber industry, may be divided
nto three classes: Greater economy in operation, development of
foreign markets, and benefits to the exporters, the whole industry,
and the public.
(1) Greater economy in operation is planned in many ways. One is
the ability to ship full cargoes where individual mills or individual
foreign purchasers could only handle smaller lots. By being the
common channel through which the orders of most of the purchasers
in a foreign market will pass on their way to the mills, an advantageous
 bunching of orders to make full shipments is practicable. This
is particularly the case with such woods as redwood and North
Carolina pine and the hardwoods, where the exportable lumber
forms a small proportion of the output of any one mill. One of the
important benefits secured by the Redwood Export Co. is stated to
be the rapid loading of vessels with shipments made directly from
the mills, each contributing its quota to the filling of large orders.
As a result demurrage charges on account of delay in loading are
avoided. By engaging all required freights through a central office,
the export combination could eliminate the forcing up of shipping
rates, through the competitive bidding of manufacturers far ocean