Page 65 - Past Chair Book-Pre 2020

First .Innuai Comrntit'ii

A Mem ber: We would like to hear from Mr. Fern ley.
M r. F e rx le y : It seems to me that this is a matter which
almost every member of your Association should discuss. There
is a vital principle whether you will go to the manufacturer and
ask him to help maintain prices, or do what the manufacturer
would prefer-^that is, maintain them yourself, realizing that it is
almost impossible to do it.
With an experience of a dozen years with the National
Hardware Association, we have found it impossible for us, as an
organization, to agree upon the maintenance of any scale of
prices, mainly because in our association all of the distributors
of given lines are not represented. There are some three or four
houses which do not co-operate themselves, and there are some
large houses whose membership has not been sought, and the
manufacturers have dealt with them, and these people thought
it smart to undersell some of the members.
As we cannot control prices, we think it proper to go to the
manufacturer to get him to use his influence and his discipline
over those who buy.
Mr. McIntosh was a member of the Committee which met
some weeks ago, and the manufacturers said “why don’t you
jobbers do this?’’ Our reply was that if they would sell the
members of our Association, and those only, we could arrange
it, but inasmuch as they did sell a number of people not members
of our Association, we had to look to them to maintain this
price agreement. As stated yesterday, ninety-five per cent of the
jobbers are willing and anxious to maintain a proper range of
profit, but the five per cent will interfere with them doing so.
I was speaking with a gentleman from the most progressive
city in the country, Mr. Maddock, of Philadelphia, and he
mentioned that no matter how well disposed he might be towards
the establishment of such a price, that if some one else cut that
price he would have to meet it. You must argue with the
manufacturer as to his interest in the case. I have used this
illustration sometimes: “Suppose you take an article which you
produce, and about which you have taken a great deal of care
in working up to a degree of perfection, and some one should
maliciously damage that tool and mar it so that when it got into