EXCERPTS ¥ROM HEARINGS.

308

W. T. Beatty, of the Austin Manufacturing Co., manufacturers
of grading machinery, Chicago, Ill., was of the opinion that—
As a matter of fact they would get to considering things that interested
then most, and the things that they can accomplish to their own benefit are
included more largely in the domestic field than they are in the foreign field.
[ don’t see, therefore, how you could possibly get a bunch of such men together
who are bitter competitors at home and have them confine their discussions and
negotiations to foreign trade alone. It could not be done in my opinion.
Charles Piez, president of the Link Belt Co., Chicago, Ill, in this
connection said, in part, as follows:

In order to cooperate in any line you have got to assume toward the man you
cooperate with a friendly relationship that you can hardly disturb when you
are meeting him as a competitor in domestic business. Of course, manufacturers
 for the past few years have been almost atraid to bow to each other if
they have been competitors, because they felt they would be put under the ban
of the law by so doing; and there has been, I think, less cooperation among
manufacturers than there should have been on that account, because a reasonable
 amount of cooperation in domestic affairs ought not only to be permitted
but ought to be encouraged. But there must be a considerably closer cooperation
 if you are going to extend that into foreign fields than any relationship
that has yet existed in domestic trade, because you have got to have a common
agent and you have got to be prepared to assume expenses jointly, because if
vou do not do that you will get your selling point above the possible point of
profit, and you must have profit in order to secure the business and continue
in it. In order to do that, therefore, there has got to be very close personal
contact between these gentlemen who are cooperating for foreign business, and
I do not see how it is possible to prevent the contagion of comradeship that that
would engender extending into domestic relations.
= * * There would have to be a comparison of costs; for instance, a
thoroughly intimate knowledge of the costs of each of the manufacturers; there
would have to be unification of terms and standardization of profit, because the
selling agent could hardly represent two manufacturers making the same or
similar product but radically different in detail. You see our product may be
competing with the product of the Jeffrey Manufacturing Co.’s product, for instance,
 and their product might be much more desirable from the customer’s
standpoint than ours, and such a relationship would have to be resorted to,
otherwise there would be the charge of discrimination against one of the cooperators,
 and that would break down the entire scheme of cooperation. - So,
naturally, any scheme of cooperation to secure foreign commerce would involve
n very close relationship. That might be carried out under the surveillance
of the Commission here, but it certainly would result in very materially reducing
the expense of distribution and sale.
When asked whether the establishment of the above relations
would tend to create a condition in this country where it would be
pasy to fix prices, Mr. Piez said:

I would not say that. I think it would have a tendency to stabilize and prevent
 very wide and often disastrous fluctuations in price, because in establish-Ing
 cooperation in foreign fields, competing with foreign makers, you naturally
would establish a line of prices in foreign fields that would affect the home market,
 and those prices being established in competition in the foreign field would
therefore represent fair prices, and, as I say, those conditions reflecting themselves
 in the home market would certainly tend to stabilize prices and to make
them just and fair.
Willis H. Booth, vice president of the Security Trust &amp; Savings
Bank, Los Angeles, and general manager of the Hot Point Electric
Heater Co., Ontario, Cal., said:

I can see that a combination for a foreign trade can naturally gravitate into
r combination for a domestic trade, and I think that is against the best practice
and best thought of competitive business. I would not like to see the foreign
trade go that far. And I think the dealers themselves might go that far if they
were allowed. One man can do that business just exactly as well as five.