REPLIES TO CARD AND SCHEDULE INQUIRIES. 363
Enable adaptation of product to the market.—The need of this was
mentioned frequently and emphatically. A vocational adviser, who
has studied Peruvian commerce and conditions, writes:
The weakness of our foreign trade is found in the inability of our manufac.
turers and producers to supply the demands of foreign customers. We have
been trying to create American tastes in the Tropics, for example, instead of
making goods to supply tropical tastes. One individual manufacturer can not
supply all of these wants, but if all our producers of goods would work together
there is no reason why the United States can not supply these markets as
cheaply and as readily, if not more so, than any foreign competitor can do.
An exporter points out the advantage of—
* * * (discovering exactly the class and quality of goods desired in each
particular country and catering thereto. If Brazil uses a million dollars’ worth
of some piece of machinery in a year, differing slightly from any we make, let
one factory of the combine exactly produce what she wants and devote its output
 to perfecting for her markets this article.

4. QUALIFIED ADVANTAGES— VALUABLE ONLY TO SMALL PRODUCER. —
One who has studied foreign commerce says:
I should regard it as of no importance in the case of great concerns like the
Standard Oil Co. or the Steel Corporation but of great importance for the small
producers who are now practically debarred from entering the foreign field at
all in many cases.

Similarly a mechanical engineer declares:
These combinations would be more serviceable to concerns not handling large
volumes of business in foreign countries. Manufacturers that already have
ngencies established would not go into a combination unless they would be able
to market their product at less expense.
B. DISADVANTAGES.

1. GENERAL INEFFICACY TO MEET THE SITUATION.—An assistant professor
 of marketing, who was associated for six years with a private
foreion trade bureau. writes:

Most of the combinations engaged in export business from foreign countries
are in the raw or staple materials. The combinations here suggested appear to
be in manufactured finished products. I am inclined to think, therefore, that
the usefulness of such associations in meeting foreign competition would be
confined to a comparatively few lines.
From a retired banker comes this assertion *

Primarily we manufacture for home consumption, which has been so profitable
in the past as to artificially stimulate production beyond the consuming power
of the country. It is this surplus that we want to export. We really do not
want, and are not fitted, to compete in the open market with other countries
for foreign trade.

A lawver suggests other objections:

T do not think the tendency of such a combination would be to meet foreign
competition. The organization would be too large and unwieldy. Foreign
competition could be met more successfully by individual concerns.
2. EviL EFFECTS ON HOME MAREET.—One who has studied trusts
and labor thinks that export combinations would operate—
By selling below competitive level, by extending longer credit, or by dump-Ing.”
 All of these methods are opposed to public interest by developing trade
which is not self-supporting and must rest on low wages, poor working conditions,
 or high price to the home consumer.