EXCERPTS FROM HEARINGS. 2nq
W. H. Field, of the United Export Biireau, New York City, said:
If we could get some way of pooling our surplus stock; if there was some
way of pooling the products of our different industries, some department which
would look out for that, it would render a very valuable and great service.
W. L. Saunders, chairman of the board of Ingersoll-Rand Co.,
manufacturers of mining machinery, New York City, said:
Business in foreign countries can best be obtained by large concerns with
abundant capital. The small American manufacturer is placed at a disadvantage
 unless he can either have his business merged with his competitors into a
large and powerful company or, as an alternative, that he can cooperate with
his competitors, forming a common selling agency or unit, for the expeditious
and eflicient conduct of business abroad against strong competition. .
The best selling agency abroad is a branch office, equipped with ‘men who
understand each particular line of product and not dealing in a general line,
the subjects of which do not coordinate; hence, large concerns like the Steel
Corporation and the Standard Oil Co., are able to conduct a prosperous business
abroad, while small concerns deal through agents and endeavor to place their
business in the hands of foreigners who are not trained in the product. By combinations
 of smaller concerns, each contributing toward the expense, branch
offices might be established abroad, equipped with strong organizations.
I should recommend that all combinations entered into or carried on in good
faith for the sole purpose of increasing, facilitating, or benefiting export trade,
cluding agreements, transactions, and acts entered into, performed, or carried
out in the course of export trade, which do not restrain or monopolize or tend
to restrain or monopolize trade within the United States, shall be lawful.

nn

If the people of the United States, through the Federal Trade Commission,
 permit manufacturers and merchants to combine for foreign business
exclusively, and they are doing business here, through their head offices directing
 the business abroad, and in that combination they leave the little fellows
outside, it seems to me that they are plainly not playing fair. In other words, they
are restraining the trade of the little fellow by building up a strong organization
 which gives them a chance to pursue methods for getting this business in
foreign countries which the little fellow can not pursue to the same extent or
with the same advantage, and, in keeping him outside the breatsworks, they
are practically exposing him to the danger of competition with the foreigner,
and he is practically at the mercy of the foreigner and at the mercy of this big
combination which is formed here for the purpose of fighting the foreigner. So
that it would seem plain that the Federal Trade Commission, in a case of that
kind, would say to this big combination doing business abroad: “ You are not
playing fair; you must see that the little fellow has a show equal to your own;
you must either take him into your combination and cooperate with him, or
you must pursue other methods in the conduct of your business that will
enable him to get business.”
Then, another point: The little fellow, if he is permitted, through the interpretation
 of the antitrust acts which I have stated, to cooperate with other
little fellows in doing export trade, he thereby forms a nucleus among smaller
manufacturers which, to a large extent, would be able to resist the power of the
big combination. By “forming a nucleus,” I mean that if a dozen or a hundred
traders in any particular line of industry get together and are permitted to
act on the basis that they may do business in a foreign country by fixing prices
and by acting through a single selling agency, they thereby build up a stronger
unit than any one of them could perhaps conduct, and in this stronger unit they
would be able to acquire greater capital; they would be able to employ more
experienced salesmen and managers in these foreign fields; they would be able
to cut down their expenses very considerably, because the expense of advertising
 is a very important expense in conducting foreign business. They would
advertise in one page, perhaps, instead of advertising in a dozen, and they would
get practically the same results; and in numerous other ways, economically,
through the management of their business, in their offices abroad, etc., they
would be in a position to form a unit that would be more or less strong in competition
 with the foreigner and with the combination of big fellows. My personal
opinfon is that the result of a combination of big concerns in export business,
with this Federal Trade Commission holding its hand over them and saying,
“You must play fair, and you must see that the little fellow gets the same