Page 127 - Past Chair Book-Pre 2020

First Annual Coinvnlion

mv humble judgment, about like this: I have been in the supply
business a quarter of a century. I can remember the time when
there were liberal profits in many lines of business. Competitors
started in business, and they felt by cutting down a little bit, two
and a half or five per cent, there was still a liberal profit. The
next fellow that came along did the same thing, and there was still
a liberal profit.
Finally we got down to such a point where it was not a
question of where there was a liberal profit but a question of
existence in certain lines, and, as our friend Bailey has expressed
it, in his line, as well as others, it don’t pay the Jobber or the
dealer to carry those goods at all.
Now, just a few words to the manufacturer. I know the
manufacturer has done things that we, as dealers, do not approve.
I also know that in many cases the manufacturer has been foiced
to do that. Take certain lines (we need not enumerate them)
where there are large consumers, the manufacturer has, for some
reason or other, found it necessary to go to that trade, and ha?
sold direct. Some of those consumers are so large that they insist
upon buying direct from the manufacturer.
Now, those are all conditions that each one of us individu­
ally has been obliged to meet, and it has simply been a case of do
the best you can under the circumstances. You had no one but
yourselves to consult and to advise what was best to be done.
When the profits were liberal we could well afford to go on
and each one individually do the best he could, but as business
changes, methods are changing, and we are today living in a very
progressive age and time. W e are living in an age when we
find that there are other fellows just as big as we are, and lots
of them larger, and we are living in an age when we need co-opera­
tion, and that is what this Association is for.
There is not a gentleman in this audience who is in business
for any other purpose than revenue only, and that is what we are
trying to accomplish.
T believe we are on the right line, and T believe the manu­

facturer is only too willing to co-operate with the jobber, and
more practically can he co-operate if the jobber can tell the manu­
facturer what he wants, as long as his wants are within reason.