300 BEPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.

producing the same grades and qualities of merchandise, as discord and
innumerable petty jealousies are bound to arise from one cause or another,
anless a definite selling policy is carried out.
Fred W. Rice, of Rice &amp; Hutchins (Inc.), Boston, Mass., shoe
manufacturers. said:

I would not join with anyone else in that way. I would not expect I was
going to get the best results. Iewould prefer to send one of our own representatives.
 It might cost more in the beginning, but the results would be
greater in the end; but I do think that if we were making men’s shoes we
could well afford to combine with makers of women’s and children’s shoes,
or with other makers of men’s shoes of different grades.
6. EFFECT THAT AMERICAN EXPORT COMBINATIONS WOULD HAVE
ON COMPETITION IN THE DOMESTIC MARKET.

W. S. Kies, manager of the foreign-trade department, National
City Bank, New York City, who favors combinations for the purpose
of export trade. said:

I do not see that it would have any serious effect. I will answer that,
however, by suggesting that, as I understand the Clayton Act, the antitrust
ret, your body here would have power to step in and stop any abuse, any
attempt to extend that combination to a fixing of prices in this country to
‘he detriment of our own consumers. In other words, what I am trying
to urge is simply the necessity of a combination of resources in the development
 of foreign market to meet the kind of competition we have to meet,
particularly from Germany and England, and from others of our competitors
 who are more thoroughly organized. My thought is that if we work
along this line, or if the Sherman Act is amended, your Commission’ stands
there as a body that will determine, as a matter of fact, whether a certain
practice is an unfair practice or not. And I think you have the power now;
that if you should work along this line and tentatively approve some temporary
 plan of organization until the Sherman Act should be amended, you
could guard against any abuses. The point that I am after is to try to
Bnd something legal, feeling that your antitrust acts have given this honorable
body the power to step in and stop the abuse. You can abuse any legal thing;
any plan can be developed along lines that are not proper, and it is your
sblization and your privilege to stop that sort of thing.
E. A. Selfridge, jr., president of the Northwestern Redwood Co.,
Willits, Cal., as to cooperative selling agencies in the redwood industry.
 said:

Organizations for these purposes,,no matter how comprehensive in scope
they might be, could not under any circumstances maintain prohibitive or
monopolistic prices because the output of redwood is so small in comparison
with that of the entire lumber industry of the United States—something like
1} per cent—that it would at all times be subject to the competition of the
remaining 98% per cent.

As to the possibility of preventing export combinations from bringing
 price fixing and division of territory into the American market,
H. P. Davison, of J. P. Morgan &amp; Co.. New York City. said:

I can see that there might be a tendency to have one affect the other somewhat.
 But I should believe that it could be so organized that they would be
really, in effect, quite independent. * * * TI think that it would be rather
difficult to entirely divorce any influence one from the other, and yet, in practice.
 I should sav it could be avoided.

Combination in foreign trade would be the means of tending to fix
prices in this country, in the opinion of Roger W. Babson, of the
Babson Statistical Agency, Boston, Mass., but he suggested permitting
 small manufacturers to combine while denying this right to
large concerns. He said: