Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/578

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THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

3. In relation to the trade a radical change has been instituted. The company has laid down the principle that it will not have any dealings with brokers in tin plate. The idea upon which this policy is based is that with but one producing company of tm plate there is no need of a broker. The company makes no quotation except on request, and in car-load lots. The territory is divided into two districts : the eastern with headquarters at New York, and the western with headquarters at Chicago. Two men have been appointed as general agents over these divisions. The sales part of the business will be independent of the other parts, the management of the mills having no jurisdiction over the general agents. Business involving less than a car load IS turned over to the jobber nearest to the customer.

4. Machinery firms. — Arrangements have been made with nearly every firm in the land engaged in manufacturing machinery for tin plate to sell their entire product to the American Tin-Plate Co. The new company expects to forestall promoters who expect to build plants and force the combination to buy them at a fancy price by arranging with the equipment firms to take their entire output. It is said that an agree- ment has been made between the two parties for five years, ending January i, 1904. Just what and how much this product is to be is determined by the tin-plate company, and the managing committee distributes the machinery secured under this agreement among the different plants as it sees fit. The prices paid for machinery are lower than if equipments were bought in the open market. There will also be an attempt made to get the machinery firms to specialize, so that each will be a producer of a cer- tain kind of machinery. It will thus be all but impossible to start a new mill to pro- duce such machinery. If, however, there is any special demand because of the attitude of the companv, it may be assumed that machine companies in other lines will enter the field as makers of tin-plate equipment. The whole arrangement, nevertheless, is indicative of the shrewd, and not-to-be-detested, attitude of this new combination.

5. Various economies. — The directors and promoters have absolutely refused to give enormous salaries. The compensation will be fair, but not high. The number of officers will also be cut down to the smallest number possible. The company in quoting prices f.o.b. from New York and Chicago, and shipping to the purchaser from the nearest mill, will be in a position to save some very considerable amounts in the course of a vear on freight rates. Whether it will secure any concessions from the railroads in freight rates is not known. Until the rate between Pittsburgh and Chicago is verv considerably reduced, the company will have to face the English competition on the Pacific coast. The company is too new to show how much of a saving may be effected by the new management. Probably greater uniformity and closer attention to cutting and waste will produce some economies.

6. The question of wages is one of the difficult things with which the new com- pany has to deal. The tendency is in the direction of a considerable increase in wages in all the steel industries. The advance in the selling price of tin plate has stimulated the officers of the Amalgamated Association to ask for a higher scale of wages. " The company is, therefore, encountering high prices in raw material (steel and pig tin) and in wages." It is questionable whether the economies spoken of above will anv more than make up for these extra expenses. The economic strength of the companv will enable it to meet these difficulties without any great trouble.

The tin-plate combination is an arbitrary, but natural, attempt to raise the price of that product.

The industry stands in two dangers : first, of possibly placing prices so high that it will be impossible to maintain them, leading to a virtual revolt on the part of con- sumers; and, second, the political movement culminating in the possible withdrawal of the tariff. If the consumers of tin become dissatisfied with the attitude of the com- pany in the matter of prices, the political movement may be reinforced by their oppo- sition to the combination. — Frank L. McVey, "The Tin-Plate Combination," in Yale Review, August, 1899.

Productive Cooperation in France. — I. TAe origin of productive cooperation in France. — The ol)servation has become almost a commonplace that England is primarily the land of consumers' cooperation, Germany of credit cooperation, and France of productive cooperation. The saying that France is the birthplace of pro- ductive cooperation is founded on the facts that that form of cooperation is the only