378 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.
Effect on prices—A prominent squthern coal company took a different
 position, thus:

Any combination or cooperative organization pushing the export of American
roal would take out the present surplus and establish higher prices at home.
This would, of course, be to the interest of the coal producer, but against the
ronISUNMer.

Danger of international combinations.—The president of a large
New York exporting house wrote:

To allow our great trusts to combine in this way would be dangerous; the
monopoly would be world-wide. They would be enabled to form combinations
with foreign trusts in the same lines and would dominate every market. The
result would be high prices to the world’s consumers. * * * Territory would
be divided, and the United States would suffer in common with other countries
because foreigners would not seek our markets even if they could, as they would
be given compensation for not doing so. As I have stated before, this is a grave
question and a serious one, which must be looked at from many angles. It
should be studied for a long time, and carefully, and investigations made abroad
before anything is attempted.
Foreign trade should not be treated differently from domestic
trade—A New York exporter wrote:
They are not in the public interest for identically the same reason that such
combinations are not in the public interest for domestic commerce. They will
stifle competition, which is the life of export trade, the same as it is of domestic
trade. I see positively no reason for a law which would discriminate between
domestic and foreign business methods. It would lead to all the evils in foreign
business which such combinations are responsible for at home, and can not
serve the purpose of developing foreign markets any better than exporters are
now doing.
A large manufacturer of hardware wrote:

We are unconvinced of the soundness of the proposition that the Federal
Government should take any attitude toward our export trade differing substantially
 from an equitable attitude toward our domestic trade. We venture the
opinion that trade, either domestic or foreign, requires for its expansion opportunity
 and common-law protection (of contract, collection, ete.), rather than
statutes for either restraint or license. This thought is particularly striking in
connection with a republican form of government, where one political party
may undo paternal or punitive measures of a previous administration, and in
turn be undone by its successor, each with the best of intentions, and yet costly
to that sensitive activity known as “trade,” and the cost reflected upon the
people through the working out of unchangeable economic laws unaffected by
legislation.
Disadvantage to small manufacturers.—A manufacturer of shirts
and waists wrote:

We are a medium-sized concern, and if we threw our interest with a cooperative
 organization it appears to us that the larger interests would gain control
 of the organization directly or indirectly, and even put in competitive lines
and sell these. It has happened before.
The head of an important New York export concern wrote:
The effect of such combinations would be of very slight benefit to the smaller
manufacturer. Unless the combination was on a basis of percentage without
reference to the volume of business passed to any one manufacturer, the combinations
 could hardly hold together. The manufacturer having few of the
orders would be dissatisfied. Goods sold abroad are largely based on brands
and reputation, and the manufacturer who introduced his goods either in this
or in other ways, having once secured the market, would be difficult to dislodge.
Therefore the aim of all manufacturers is to secure this footing, and it can
hardly be done by combination.