Arizona republican., 1915-09-21
ONE FEATURE
 OF PROBLEM
Where and How is the Dol lar of the Consumer on It's Way Back to the Pro- ducer Divided?

At this time when so much interest has been awakened in this community in the marketing problem an article from Western Farm Life of Denver under the head of "Destined to Revu- lutionize the Marketing System" prints an article which shows what becomes of the consumers dollar and incidentally shows that there is much more of the marketing problem than many people suspect
 The following is an extract from it
 The Country Gentleman gives an illustration of some figures submitted at recent fruit trade convention which shows what becomes of the dol lar the consumer pays for soil products in his corner grocery store. These figures were averaged from citrus fruit transactions, extending over a period of a year and involving more than 5000 sales.
 The dollar was split more than three ways between the grower. the transportation company and the mer- chant The wroWer got back 361 cents gross. Out of that he had to pay 2.4 cents for picking and hauling the fruit to the packing house and A cents for box, packing and load ing on the cars. This left him 26.3 cents for his fruit on the tree out of which ho had to meet all growing costs. There w~e q ceiling expense through t,ie oI gan.zation of IS cents The railroad comp ny took one fifth or 205 cents. The trade took the re- maining 41.9 Ccrts, the commission merchants took S.2 cents and the re- taller for his work in putting the frtr ha it over the counter to the consumer got 33.7 cents.
 These figures are fairly repre- sentative of most farm products and show very clearly that the men who are well organized are the ones who get the lions share of the producers dollar
 These figures show clearly that the producer receives too small a part of the consumers dollar. But in that part of the quotation. and the retailer for his work in putting the fruit into paper bag and handing it over the counter to the consumer, got 33.7 cents is the implication fair to the retailer? We know of few re- tailers of farm produce who are get ting rich. Yet these figures would show they receive a tremendous re- turn for very small service and indi- cate-without going back of the statement-that they should be rolling in wealth
 Little investigation is needed. how ever, to show that the retailer is having much the same kind of struggle as the producer. Therefore, if he can make only a bare living while apparently receiving the big gest part of the consumers dollar, is it not plain that he must have to pass a big share of that 33.7 cents he gets off that dollar to some one or more individuals behind him? Before we can get an adequate idea of the amount of the consumers dollar the retailer actually receives, we need to know exactly how much of what he gets over the counter is net to him and to what extent he is merely the collector of monopoly interest feeding on him. It is therefore worth while in this inquiry to have exact knoWl- edge of the cost of retailing and what part of the dollar received by the re- taller is profit. We believe this knowledge will clear up a good deal of the misunderstanding between retailers and producers and between retailers and consumers and bring each class to realize that prosperity lies in a united effort to eliminate all waste and monopoly profit in present selling costs"