Norwich bulletin., 1921-03-04

2 get fifty cents dozen from tdeir cus- toners, and i've won't handle eggs for less than fifteen cents" On his way home with his unsold eggs he stopped for a moment at the home of personal friend, former next :: door neigabor, who knew him and that what he said could be- depended upon. Mentioning his egg experience, this lady grew so indignant over it that she held an impromptu indignation meeting over the telephone with 3 couple of closetby , friends, right then and there, and the three took all his eggs at fifty cents, cash. One said she had been charged sixty. cents, the day before, at a retail store, hand the eggs weren't fresh at that. They were glad to get some they could open with confidence.
 Furthermore, they told hfn to come and see them, next time he had any eggs or butter with him, before he carried his truck to any store. Each one had friends who would like to get trustwof- 1 thy stuff direct from the farm, and would gladly pay fair prices for & l The result is that my neighbor Is like 1 ly to cease all further attempts to do | business with the city retailers, and de- l liver his eggs, butter, etc, direct to con- suming customers at higher prices than 1 the retailers would give him, and yet, at 1 lower prices to the consumers than the 1 retailers would give them.
 | This little story seems to me to have in it good deal of matter worth think l ing about
 i Consider, first, the ease of that sub- missiYe farmer with his eighteen dozen I eggs. He brought them to the retailer 1 and sold them to that dealer at the deal | er's own price. He said nothing, in 1 deer, he had no chance to say anything about what they were really worth or l what he expected for them He had no
 voice in fixing the price. The retailer | fixed that Then MT. Farmer bought his
 weekly supply of groceries which. also. were priced by the retailer Mir. Farm CT had no voice whatever in saying i, what he should give for sugar or oat- 1 meal or canned salmon, or anything else. | No more than in saying what he should l get for the eggs.
 Was this case of doing business?''
 Or was it an illustration of 'heads win; tails you lose?"
 ! Why should the grocer fix the price l he shall pay a farmer for his eggs, and l the price the farmer shall pay him for his four, too? Why should he hold the l key to his own till and the strings of the farmers change-baFl both7 On what theory of even dealing does he clain, the right to say he shall not only charge what he pleases for that which he sells, but shall also gay what he pleases for l that which he buyst Please observe, too, thnk he does thla only with the farmer. He doesn't try, to
 work that game when he buys manufac- II tuted goods. He doesn't tell the Min.
 neapolis millers what he will give them
 for their flour. They fix the price and
 tell him what he can have 1t for. He
 may chaffer an1 bargain till the COW,
 come home, but, eventually, if not soon CT, the millers make the price. When i
 is o farmer with some eggs or pota. toes or apples, however, which he want.
 to sell in order to get money to buy
 flour. the grocer not only fixes the price
 he will charge for the four. but also tht
 price he will allow for the eggs ol
 potatoes or apples Note, if ysa please, another interest
 ing little thing about the transaction be } tween that unknown farmer with his tw
 baskets of eggs and the grocer. The lat . 1 ter wouldn't ''handle' them unless h could sell them at fifteen cents g. doze1 ! more than he paid. So he paid thirty-f1v cents. Now, to make fifteen cents on
 thirty-ive cent investment is to mak about forty-three per cent. profit Bu that wasn't all; the grocer paid for tn
 eggs with goods at prices fixed before 1 hand to yield at least twenty-five pc cent. profit on them. That is, he mad
 we'll say, twenty-five per cent profit o
 the groceries he sold, and forty-three pc cent on the eggs he bought, or sixty
 eight per cent. on the transaction, as
 while He took things going and
 took things coming.
 When I was boy and used to ac company my father to the country stol