202 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.

For instance, a man who is manufacturing edged tools, and a man who is
making builders’ hardware, and a man who is making screws, and a long line
of various materials such as would be handled by a hardware merchant; there
might be 10 or 15 such manufacturers banded together.
A. S. Postnikoff, manufacturers’ agent for foreign trade and
former representative in Russia of the International Harvester Co.,
Chicago, Ill., said:

If a foreign selling organization, having goods of real merit and in demand
abroad, is organized and managed in the proper way, its success is assured,
and it means ultimately great benefit to those interested and to this country.
The average manufacturer can not hope to export his goods in a satisfactory
 manner nor to create a permanent demand for them unless he is prepared
 to spend some money in advance for the absolutely necessary financial
requirements of the work. The agent who takes his line on a commission
generally does not create a permanent business, and he generally requires the
manufacturer to assume the burden and the risk of credits as well. A local
concern, and this statement is made as the result of experience, can and does
collect, as a manufacturer, situated a long distance from his customers, can not.
The seller who is in daily touch with his customers can collect more promptly,
his customers grow to depend upon the local stock, and they, if necessary, pay
more promptly because of their requirements.
It can be said also that one strong concern, representing a number of manufacturers
 of allied lines, is able to do a larger volume of business on less
capital with less selling expenses at a greater profit and give better service
than a considerable number of individual concerns working alone. .

E. W. McCullough, general manager of the National Implement &amp;
Vehicle Association, Chicago, Ill, in this connection, said:
The combining of manufacturers or other business classes to build up trade
abroad, through cooperation, should especially be sanctioned, for with many,
especially the smaller houses, the expense of maintaining independent selling
organizations would be prohibitive.
To illustrate the necessity for this, an investigation will show that, as yet, the
distribution of American implements and farm machinery abroad, like the
carrying of it in ships, is in foreign hands, naturally unfriendly from a business
standpoint, and ready to substitute their own goods whenever opportunity
offers.
In Germany and Russia, where the superiority of our product has aroused
envy and imitation by local manufacturers is rife, the selling of our goods is
largely in the hands of German and English jobbers, whose only interest in
them is the matter of better profits.
Furthermore, the number of American manufacturers in these lines outnumber
 these jobbers or wholesalers in all foreign fields; consequently, opportunity
 to sell is denied those who are not fortunate in securing one of these
jobbers, particularly if such a combining to secure representation is not permitted
 or the expense of maintaining an independent agency is prohibitive.
All our lines are branded or trade-marked; consequently it is not contemplated
 that competing lines would combine, but, for illustration, a line of
plows and tillage implements might cooperate with lines of cutting machinery,
wagons, buggies, harvesting machinery, etc., as successfully as it has been done
in domestic trade. thus placing our foreign representation in friendly American
hands.

M. W. McArdle, export manager of the Chicago Flexible Shaft
Co., Chicago, Ill., stated that—
¢ * * lines, that may be distributed in a similar way or that go to the same
class of consumers, might be distributed to advantage in combination; for instance,
 our Australian house, now seeking lines that they can combine with their
own to advantage and selling to the same class of trade and the same class of
consumer. That is one thing that I think the American manufacturers could do
to advantage; where several manufacturers make articles that are not in themselves
 competitive, but which go to the same class of trade or are distributed
through the same channel, they could be handled by one organization, and a
company could be formed for that purpose to good advantage.