CONCLUSIONS,

375

continue to get the same goods year after year. Moreover, this
demand must be created in distant countries. In face of determined
and skillful opposition from competing foreign manufacturers united
in powerful combinations, this is a most difficult undertaking.
It is among American manufacturers of staples, therefore, particularly
 the smaller concerns, that cooperation for export business is
especially needed. It will permit them to create organizations
which ¢an compete on more nearly equal terms with the organizations
of their foreign rivals. They can afford, then, to advertise, to study
foreign demands and customs, to make demonstrations, to open
branches, warehouses, and stores abroad, to collect credit information
and to extend credit, to employ skilled salesmen familiar with foreign
markets, and to maintain a direct representation of their own which
will be firmly established and effective in the markets to be covered.
The expense of such promotion will not be excessive when shared by
a number of participants.
In many lines of manufacture the export commission houses and
the export merchants are undoubtedly the best agencies by which
goods can be placed in foreign markets. These firms have played
a great part in the development of American trade in manufactured
goods, and their functions and their value in this respect should not
be forgotten nor underrated. But to many of the demands of international
 trade in such goods they are inadequate. Frequently such
articles require highly specialized technical training on the part of
salesmen. In other cases long and expensive introductory work
must be done to create a market. Export commission firms and
export merchants are far less disposed to spend money and energy
in. such work than are the manufacturers whose continued prosperity
depends upon the creation of markets for their goods. The commission
 house and the export merchant handle dozens of different
lines of manufacture. Their profits come from the total business,
and it is the total with which they are chiefly concerned. But the
manufacturer is interested in a single line of products. He concentrates
 his effort on the creation of business for that line, and he is
much more resolute in the matter than any intermediary who has
no capital invested in manufacturing plants and equipment.
In domestic business, competition, independence, and the play of
individual forces is the settled policy of this country. The law
requires that this shall be the condition of business here. Abroad,
the legal conditions are different. In many countries combination
is permitted and in some is even encouraged. What is equality of
opportunity for manufacturers within this country, therefore,
become inequality and disadvantage for them when they undertake
to export to other countries.