298 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.

vast number of firms who could obtain valuable business in these countries,
provided they could combine with others in this marketing. However, as it
appears to me essential that goods should be sold on quality, I do not favor the
combined selling of strictly competitive lines. Of course, in making this statement,
 I refer only to goods with which I am familiar and where the brand
stands Tor something definite. There may be other lines, such as chemicals,
where groups of merchants could combine without affecting the interests either
of themselves or their customers,
H. C. Atkins, president. of E. C. Atkins &amp; Co., Indianapolis, Ind.
manufacturers of saws, said:

I do not know that we do, particularly, need it [cooperation with competitors]
for the development of our foreign trade in our particular line of business.
That is a thing that appeals to me as something outside of our own particular
field; there are many lines of business ‘where those cooperative ideas could
take care of the trade better than they could without them. I do not think
in our line of business that it would make any particular difference, because
we have a condition to meet, which condition is not made by us, but by outside
competition, and we could meet that without any arrangements with our competitors.


James Maloney, president of the Maloney Belt Co., Chicago, I11., did
not think common selling agencies in his line feasible, because their
goods are not standardized. His statement was:
The different qualities manufactured by the different houses make it a
complicated question. In leather, you know, of course, the weight and the
quality vary, and that is the worst thing we have in our own country here to
contend with without going to foreign countries. There are half a dozen concerns
 here in the United States that do considerable business, who are on the
ragged edge all the time. They make a light-weight class of goods, inferior
roods, and sell them cheap. The first-class manufacturer has the hardest kind
of a time to compete with them, and it is the same way in Furope. I found
that to be true in Europe, but in South America they have got to have good
goods, and they will pay for them.
M. W. McArdle, export manager of the Chicago Flexible Shaft
Co., Chicago, I1l., said:

1 do not see any possible way where competing lines could combine to do
susiness in foreign countries to advantage any more than they could comrine
 at home, unless they form a monopoly. The products of different manufacturers,
 even in the same line, vary so much that if, for instance, these engine
manufacturers were to combine on the sale of engines for the Argentine, you
would find that some one of the six would be predominating down there to the
exclusion of the others, practically.
When asked whether the bedstead manufacturers of this country
could meet the.English competition if they were permitted to form
an association similar to the English combination, Alfred Terrell, of
the Simmons Manufacturing Co., Kenosha, Wis., said:
I am not here to advocate that; I do think that is practical.
* * = 7T think we would have troubles in our own family that would offset
any advantage we might gain by being permitted to do that.
B. Elsey, general manager and treasurer of the Indianapolis Glove
Co., Indianapolis, Ind., said:
We awould not consider, however, sending a man in the field, nor would
we consider putting our goods into the hands of any cooperative association,
 because we do not think it is worth while. * * * We would not
consider it under any circumstances. If a man takes our line of goods, we
will not permit him to sell any other line. We simply restrict his operations
to our line alone.
Take the firm that handles our goods in England, Scotland, and Australia.
When we entered into the agreement, the agreement provides that they shall
not offer any other line of stuff; and while they handle various iines of goods,
they are not permitted to handle any other glove account.