Page 44 - Past Chair Book-Pre 2020

48 The National Supply and Machinery Dealers’ Association

in percentage added to the net price. Some of the manufacturers
have expressed their willingness for the dealers to get all the
profit they want on their part—they can add the extra percentage
to their selling price—and I think now is the time to get our fif­
teen per cent discount while the manufacturers are advancing
their prices.
If we could have started this movement two years ago,
I think today we would be working on a fifteen per cent discount,
and it would have been brought about by an increase in the sell­
ing price at the same time that we get an increase in the discount,
and I think a good many manufacturers today are willing to in­
crease their selling price and give the merchants fifteen per cent.

AIr. M a r s h a l l : In regard to the meeting at Cincinnati,
the question of discount was not discussed actively at that time,
but my understanding of the matter was that it was to be twelve
and a half per cent discount from the list price.
To show that I was not alone in that understanding I will
refer to the manufacturers’ convention in New York, in December,
where they spent four hours of their valuable time in trying to
determine whether there was a difference between twelve and a
half per cent on and twelve and a half off, and they could not deter­
mine it. and put it on the table. That shows I am not alone in the
idea whether it was a twelve and a half per cent discount. Even if
it is one and a quarter added on it affects our profits. I was
under the impression, and I think others were at that time, that
we would get twelve and a half per cent, which would yield us
a good substantial advance in the net profits. This whole con­
tract here is not the same in phraseology as it was understood
in Cincinnati. Mr. Reed, our Secretary, took down in short­
hand the exact sense of the meeting at Cincinnati, and when we
got this report it differed in the phraseology to such an extent
that there are two meanings to every thing. We can pick flaws
in them from a legal point. This contract, the way it is, if you
take it to an attorney and ask him to draw it up, he would say
“Not for me, there is nothing in it.” It is for the manufacturer.
There is a double meaning in every one of these clauses. I do
not think the contract is worth anything at all so far as it goes.