EXCERPTS FROM HEARINGS. 269

who are not; and other mills who are advantageously equipped for catering to
the eastern trade, others who are not; there are other mills who are admirably
situated for catering to their home domestic trade in California, and I think
the natural conditions will ultimately lead to groups rather than to one selling
organization. .
In regard to the Redwood Export Co., Mr. C. R. Johnson, president
 of the Union Lumber Co., San Francisco, Cal.. said:
The economy is very largely that we can, by doing this joint work, regulate
our cutting end; we do not have to take, as we sometimes do when we are
alone, an order and rush to get it out at tremendous disadvantage and then,
perhaps, have a long period of famine. On that sort of order we can run
more regularly on it.
These four mills that are in here handle the lumber of any other redwood
mill that wishes it to handle their lumber, and handle it on a commission of
1} per cent. That has given a profit over expenses, and that profit has been
expended in the exploitation of these different markets that we are in or that
we hope to get in. For instance, we have an agent in the Argentine Republic
that we are paying by the year to try to introduce the wood,
As to the per cent of the export business handled by this company,
Mr. Johnson said:
Probably about 80 per cent. And I think I would like to explain that this
company handles exports only to those countries where joint action is very
necessary for these physical reasons we have spoken of. For instance, it pays
no attention to the exports to Mexico, as the shipments are in comparatively
small quantities and can be handled by any unit.
J. H. Kirby, a prominent yellow-pine lumber manufacturer of
Houston, Tex., said:

If we could form an association or cooperative organization of that kind for
the purpose of taking care of the foreign trade, it might be $3 or $4 a thousand
 better than the domestic trade, because not all of us are so situated that
we can reach the ports on a competitive basis. There are many interior Jniils
like Arkansas, for instance, where there would be a differential against them
in the freight rate reaching the port. But it would take out of the domestic
trade, to the extent of the consumption abroad, the product the coast mills
make that is marketable abroad. There are a great many things where the
market is peculiarly in this country, but of their grades which are marketable
abroad it would take them out of the domestic market, and of course they
would sell for more money abroad or they would not go abroad.
None of us have the stock behind us to supply the demand. We have got to
have cooperation or else we can not supply the trade and can not make large
contracts abroad. None of us, or perhaps no two or three of us, are big enough
to supply that demand and meet our contracts. We would have to take in a
large number of manufacturers having the capacity to supply the contracts,
and that of itself would be effective in attracting to us the bottoms; whether
we bought them, or hired them, or whatsoever.
Joint selling arrangements for marketing at one time the varied
Paialied furniture products of different houses were urged by
. B. Smith, president of the Wolverine Manufacturing Co., Indianapolis.
 He stated:

First of all I would like to make the statement that the furniture industry
Is classified under specialties. One manufacturer makes one branch of the
product. For instance, our particular industry is parlor and library tables.
Another man makes bedroom furniture. Another man makes refrigerators.
and another man makes chairs.
In order to successfully reach the foreign manufacturer or the foreign market,
some plan must be definitely devised whereby we can go to him with a household
 product and sell him complete: and that involves the use of a cousiderable
amount of capital.
I do not believe that the furniture manufacturer in this country will ever
develop much of his foreign business until we have an organization with a
sufficient amount of capital and a sufficient variety of product so as to be able