The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1916-09-15
THE STEPHENS FAIR TRADE BILL

! Every indication over the country
mail order house are making a des-
perate effort to defeat the national
Legislation known as THE Stephens
Fair Trade Bill"
This bill will be of the largest valu /.
in stopping price cutting on certain
articles below cost of production for
the sake of batting" the people on
t" buying in other lines where prices
are advanced to more than cover the
losses on the special article sold at
cut prices.
The plan of mail order houses
through which they take standard ar
ticles that have a fixed selling price
and sell them at less than cost, is
demoralizing to the legitimate re-
tail business, legitimate jobbing busi-
ness and to the business of the man
afacturers themselves and it is to
stabilize prices and stop this char
acter OF cut-throat business that the
stephens bill was introduced in con-
gress.
This is one of the most important
measures Of recent years in the inter
est Of small dealers. When mail or
der houses take nationally advertis-
ed goods that the manufacturers
have created a market for and cut the
price below the price that local re-
tailers must pay for these goods, II
simply drives the retailer out of the
selling field in those lines and the
catalogue house, after getting this
business at a less than cost price.
makes it up on other goods so that
the local merchant is hit from both
directions.
1t took several years to pass a par.
cells post law and when it was pass
ed, the local merchants over the
country were protected through the
zone system. The mail order houses
made the effort to have a one-fiat
carrying rate on parcels post, carry
ing parcel from ocean to ocean as
cheaply as the same parcel could be
carried at ten miles distant. Congress
when it passed the parcels post law.
very wisely created the zone sys-
TEN. making packages pay accord
ing to the distance they travel, which
was fair and equitable.
This parcels post zone system has
been largely nullified through postal
regulations that have allowed big
catalogue houses to ship supplies by
freight to different points in the
country and then distributing then,
at local first zone rates-directly
against the spirit of the parcels post
law which contemplated that pack
ages should pay from their source OF
origin rates according to the dis
Itance travelled
Manufacturers and jobbers and
small merchants are all directly in
|terested in seeing the Stephens bill
passed and the big opponents of this
measure are the mail order houses
which want no restriction placed or
their unfair business. The advant
|" S'' NioN AIi' lIldil OIutl houses nave
D acured in the parcels post system
have been greater than the law il.
self contemplated. If they can XIII
of the Stephens bill. they will be still
further equipped to combat the
smaller merchants scattered over the
country The whole question is
rapidly becoming one of whether the
merchandising OF the country shall
be concentrated into the hands o
the few great houses in the larger
cities or whether the merchandisine
snail be done on an equitable basis
among retail merchants through tn,
cities and towns over the entire
country.-The Southern Merchant.