New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1899-08-26
DPYGOODS TRUSTS.


| II would not be America II we did not surpass
| Europe Over the water they have department
and drygOOds stores by the score or the hundred
under one management. the challenger for the
yacht cup having knowledge Of lot OF them,
and so presumably New-Jersey report discov-
ers an inchoate combination Of department
stores to control several hundred with options
on many already. 1t is rather singular that
this. on the whole the most rational application
of the combination system, should be so back
ward in coming forward. On the face OF things
one buyer can do better for several hundred
| such stores than one for EACH and the economy
| in shipments would he no small matter, while
the ability to ship surplus stocks from city
where business Is exceptionally dull to others
where it is active should by itself mean large
difference in profits during year.
The trusts so called, are gravitatlng toward
Mr.. Belamy's socialism. They do not know 1t,
nor did he. Their idea is to capture larger
profits for individuals and his was to take the
larger profits for society as whole 1t is not
wide gap 70 cross. II somebody had an option
on all the retail drygoods houses in the coun-
try, and proposed TO sell to the Government,
what an outcry there would be. Yet 1t Is ex-
actly in that direction, and not In any other,
that the socialistic theory Of distribution has It's
advantages. In the great wholesale trade IL
would have trouble, in foreign trade. In adapta-
ton Of trade to the needs OF various industries
and the people dependent on them. But the
drygoods dealer who could handle things as well
AZ a wholesaler does to jobbers at New-YOrk
could find ways to save some profit by shipping
direct to retail selling houses by the hundred.
| II is a scheme which does not appear on the
it Iaoo
for promoters and bankers, as a combination Of
eighty or a hundred iron works but 1t would
have remarkable advantages.
Perhaps II is good time TO call attention to
the fact that the whole machinery of distribu-
| ton stands IL far greater need Of reorganza-
ton with view to economy than any other
| branch of the commercial apparatus. There IL
vast amount of money lost in sending stocks
| where they are not sold single directing
agency. all the time in touch by wire with every
selling office, could cut off several millions Of loss
| every year by sending goods from places where
the demand is falling short Of expectations to
| other sections where 1t runs above orders.
Every year it happens that the retail distribu-
ton in some quarters is low, while in others it
is gaining but large losses inevitably result
from the waste which individualism In the work
| Of distribution causes.
! In manufacturing the conditions are diff
ferent Even there the tendency of latter day
| combinations IS toward the economies which
| single control by Government could secure, but
| there Is no room to allow for different necessl-
| ties In various localities without charging each
with responsibility In management which
helps to guard the individual against error but
would be by far more costly TO the centralized
management or its hired local officials. Yet the
| tendency of modern business Is strongly toward
highly centralized control, and only bold man
will venture TO say that In the long run that
| system will not prevail.
| What for the consumer? This always, that he
| needs only common sense TO protect himself.
| The consumers will never lose long II they stop
buying when prices are in their Judgment I'M
rea sonable They can always bring the biggest
OF the combinations to its knees by curtailing
their purchases. II they do not care, or do not
know when there Is reason for them to act that
| Ia their Affair."