Eaton weekly Democrat. [volume] (Eaton, Ohio) 1866-1875, 1871-06-29
The Commercial It
System.
Travellers

Great efforts are being made, in some
sections of the interior, to bring the COM
mercial travellers system into disrepute.
The hostile movement, as might be ex-
pected, is mostly confined to those Wes-
tern cities and their outlying dependen-
cies which furnish the great field of en-
terprise for those Eastern merchants and
manufacturers who avail themselves OF
this system. Legal prescription and re-
preston were the instrumentalities first
used to combat this enterprise. But
through the eXertions of our National
Board of Trade, a more liberal policy o.
local legislation, touching the freedom
of trade competition, has lately been IN
augurated. Most of the penal statutes
designed to shut out this competition as
represented by commercial travellers,
and to protect local dealers in the enjoy
ment of a monopoly, have been swept
away.
And now the opponents of the system,
hopeless of re-erecting any of these legal
barriers, have adopted new code of tao
tics. While their organs have under
taken to decry it as unpopular and un-
profitable even to those who employ it,,
we notice that some of the interior job
bers are combining and organizing their
forces, with a view to establish a policy
of nou-intercourse with those manufac-
turers and importers who persist in fur
nishing price lists to, OF in soliciting g
orders from, any but wholesale dealers.
We understand, that several trade asso-
Citations of this kind have lately been
formed, the members of which are
pledged to have no dealings with business
firms who send out commercial travellers.
We believe that this is an injudicious
movement, which can not fail to react
unfavorably against the movers. This
policy of fnon-intercourse is two-edged
sword which is very apt to wound those
who undertake to WELD it. 1t is very
stuyid and suicidal for any merchant to
pledge himself not to buy where he can
probably buy the cheapest, and in so
doing he virtually surrenders the field of
competition, and may as we'll retire from
business. Besides, the principal involved
is not practical one, since the coercion
which it contemplates can not possibly
be enforced. A proper discrimination
between wholesale and retail prices, in
the distribution of circulars and canvass
ing for orde re-, is all that can reasonably
be expected or required by local dealers
of those who make this system a
speciality.
Like the matter of branch houses, it is
system too firmly established, and
thoroughly tested as to its practical re-
suits, to be abondened at the instance OF
any hostile combination which can be
got up to oppose it. To do so, would be
to run counter to the wishes and inter
est of nine-tenths of the small country
buyers throughout the West and South,
who are more benefited by it than the
Eastern merchant.
1t puts into the hands and before the
eyes of the former the very articles
which he needs without searching fol
them, and enables him to make the best
SalectinD n goods without
trouble and expenses of reaching a dis
| tant market. Although it reverses the
| old order of things which compelled thu
buyer to seek the seller in those remote
markets, it conforms to the progressive
spirit of the times, and is too sensible
and practical method of doing business
to be discarded in this age OF steam and
| electricity. ....-.---------z z-
AS to the plea of the commercial trav-
eller system having lately become un-
profitable and irksome to those who for
merly regarded it as Indispensable to the
success of their business, we must be
permitted to doubt until we have some
| convincing evidence to that effect. Sc
far as our observation extends, we know
that those who have availed themselves
of it in judicious and honorable way
have never failed to experience the mos
satisfactory results. Like all Other
modes of doing business, it is liable tt
| abuse, and as practiced by some impru-
dent or unscrupulous traders, may have
proved failure or couse of discredit in
their particular cases. But in the hands
of skillful, reliable men, such as are
usually employed in this responsible ca
pacity, it must continue as now, one o.
the most efficient agencies of modern
commeree.-Boston Commercial Bulletin