364 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.

A farmer and stock raiser who has made a study of prices paid
producers in home and foreign markets voices this economic theory:
If foreign competition can produce and market as cheaply and efficiently as
we can, I see no object in trying to force any particular product on them at a
loss to us. We had better turn our attention to things we can do best.
Export COMBINATIONS A8 AN AID IN DEALING WITH COMBINATIONS OF
ForeleN Buyers.
Question No. 6, which was sent to the same classes as the two preceding
 questions, reads as follows:
In what ways, if at all, could such export organizations deal more successfully
with combinations of foreign buyers?
Out of the total of 594 persons replying to these schedules 445
answered this query. With a few exceptions the replies consistently
indorsed export organizations as a means of dealing with combinations
 of foreign buyers. The specific advantages and uses named
may be classed under two heads, thus:
0) The advantages of size and unity in meeting the aggressions
of foreign buyers. About half of the different finds of benefits
described by the respondents come under this head. The quotation
by foreign buyers of one American producer against another and the
resultant price cutting appeared the most specific evil to be remedied
by organization.
(2) The advantages to the foreign buyer in being able to deal
with a single organization. The buyer is of course a customer of the
American manufacturer who is normally more concerned with the
problem of pleasing him and tempting him than of fighting him.
Conveniences to the buyer such as better credits, standards, fixed
policy, etc., were cited as products of combined action.
The objections to export organizations in dealing with foreign
buyers were few in number and appear to have been evolved deductively
 from a general prejudice against any sort of combination.
They may be classified thus:
(1) The inefficacy of such organizations for forcing high prices
or representing the real wishes of their members.
(2) The lack of necessity for such associations, inasmuch as there
are few, if any, combinations of buyers. This assertion came mainly
from respondents whose experiences had been in South America.
(8) Direct evils would result—intimidating the small manufacturer,
 control by cliques, ete.
A digest of the replies received is given below in two groups—
those that suggested the advantages offered by export combinations
for dealing more successfully with combinations of foreign buyers,
and those that suggested the disadvantages.

A. ADVANTAGES.

Those indorsing export combinations as an aid in dealing with
unified foreign buying gave various reasons for their opinions.
1. BETTER ABILITY TO COPE WITH AGGRESSION OF FOREIGN BUYERS.—
Collective bargaining.—A professor of economics declares:
They would have more power in bargaining than the individual manufacturer.