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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
Wants a Change.
SO SAY WE, BUT WE DIFFER AS TO KINDS—A WELL-KNOWN BUSINESS MAN WRITES UPON THE
BUSINESS SITUATION — CONDITIONS IN THE PIANO TRADE
THE REVIEW'S BELIEF
STOP AGITATION AND GIVE US A SETTLED PROTECTIVE TARIFF
AND WE WILL QUICKLY RECUPERATE.
T
HE "Specialty Talks" which have
been appearing in THE REVIEW have
created widespread interest in the trade.
The subjoined is from a prominent piano
man of vast experience in manufacturing,
commercial and banking business. His
name we withhold, as it is his preference,
but we print the matter because THE RE-
VIEW is no one-sided organ. It is perfectly
willing to print both sides of the politico-
economic struggle. The questions pro-
pounded by THE REVIEW were in brief as
follows:
Whether the dealers, taken as a whole
throughout the country, comprehend just
what it cosis to sell pianos. In other
words, do they figure the actual expenses
of running their establishment, including
rents, salaries, advertising expenses, capital
invested and their own work, in proportion
that they should ?
Again we place the comparison between
the dealers engaged in retailing musical
merchandise with those engaged in dispens-
ing dry goods, boots and shoes and other
trades to disprove the fact that there are
abnormal profits in the piano business.
We asked other questions relative to the
development of the South, as regards
mineral and industrial enterprises.
The following is the reply:
THE
SITUATION
AS SEEN
BY OUR CORRES-
PONDENT.
" 4
I think it is quite likely that the dealers
in pianos do not, in many cases, take into
consideration as fully as they should all
expenses attending the sale of a piano.
The difference between the first cost and
the retail price is large, and should under
proper management leave a good profit to
the dealer. At present it costs twice as
much to sell a piano as it did a few years
ago, because the average contraction in the
price of all the products of labor has been
from fifty to sixty-five per cent., thereby
reducing the ability of the people to buy
pianos by one-half, and making it twice as
hard to force sales on people unable to buy
scarcely the necessaries of life. The stock
raiser who sold his horses and mules a few
years ago at from $100 to $300 each, is sell-
ing his stock to-day at from $25 to $60.
Can he buy any more pianos? The farmer
who sold wheat at $1 to $1.50 a bushel a
few years ago, is selling it to-day at from
twenty-five to sixty cents. Can he buy any
more pianos? The farmer who is burning
his corn for fuel in the West because he
can't sell it for enough to buy fuel—can he
buy any more pianos? The miner and iron
man in the South, who a few years ago sold
his iron at $20 a ton and bought pianos for
his family, is to-day selling his iron for
$6.50 per ton to Europe. Can he buy any
more pianos? Talk to him about protec-
tion and he will tell you he wants some
other change than that. I could go on in
this line of thought until I would fill your
paper, but it is enough to show that there
is no further use under the present condi-
tion of our affairs for half the pianos that
there was a few years ago. Hence half the
people now engaged in forcing pianos on to
people who are totally unable to pay for
them, even at $5 a month, must get out of
the business; but the trouble is there is no
room for them in any other business. For,
on account of the deplorable condition of
our country—with continuing contraction
of the value of the products of labor—mak-
ing them too poor to buy what they need—
throwing half the producers of all Kinds out
of work. The only remedy I can see is a
change. Nothing can be much worse than
it is now, and without the necessary change
how much longer will the contracting pro-
cess continue, and what will values be five
years hence for the products of labor?
As to the present methods of piano deal-
ers in transacting their business, it is cer-
tainly very different from that of the dry
goods, boot and shoe, and other trades; but
the present condition of the country has
much to do with the present methods. Re-
move the trouble and give the country ex-
pansion in place of contraction, and the
bad features of the trade would to a great
extent at once disappear, the cost of selling-
would go down one-half. A dealer doing
business in one of our largest Western cities
told me he paid $7,000 a year rent; em-
ployed thirty men and paid commissions of
ten per cent, on many sales, and that his
sales did not average over forty pianos a
month. He said he did not want to turn
off any of his men, but unless a change
took place soon, he would have to let two-
thirds of them go. I will mention another
case of a dealer who employed a road man
and sent him out. At the end of two
months he had seven pianos placed around
in country houses, but no sales. He was
discharged and another man sent out to
gather up the pianos and return them to the
store. It is useless to say more; these
things are well understood by the trade.
A remedy is what is needed; something
could be done in the line of reducing ex-
penses in hard times. Those who have the
money interest in the pianos should guard
their interests better and not consign or
sell their goods on time to unworthy people.
It seems any dead beat can get into the
piano business. I think the methods of
the dry goods and shoe dealers better than
those of the piano dealers, and the results
more satisfactory.
In regard to question five, regarding the
rapid development of the South—there is
no rapid development going on in the
South. The coal miners are working only
two days in the week, earning from $2 to
$4 per week, and some of them have
families of from six to ten persons to sup-
port on it, and yet people talk about the
pauper labor of Europe and the rapid de-
velopment of the South. Why, the South,
like all the rest of the country, is suffering
from contraction. Prices of its products
have shrunk up to less than starvation for
the laborer. What can the laborer get out
of potatoes sold at ten cents a bushel?
Some planters have abandoned their
plantations because the products will not
bring enough to pay for the labor of pro-
duction. There can be no prosperity until
the farmers and all producers become
more prosperous. Those who convert the
natural resources of this country into
material wealth are the ones who start your
factories going; unless they have the
money to buy your pianos, you cannot sell
them. The only way the piano business
can be improved and the demand for musi-
cal instruments brought back to what it
was a few years ago, is to reinstate the
price for the products of labor that pre-
vailed a few years ago. The cause of the
contraction is well known; remove it and
the effects will disappear.
The only
trouble is, some interested parties say it
cannot be done without the co-operation of
England. It is the first time any party in
this country ever said they were afraid to
do as they thought best for the interest of
their own country.
However great the resources of any
country, however fertile its soil, ingenious
and enterprising its people, or grand its in-
stitutions, if the volume of money is con-
tracting and prices are falling, its inhabi-
tants will be overwhelmed with debt and
bankruptcy.
Its industries will be para-
lyzed, and destitution and distress will
prevail. The fine arts will be lost sight of
by the masses—they having all they can
do to struggle for a bare existence.
Yours truly,
FOR
A CHANGE.
THE SITUATION AS SEEN BY THE REVIEW.
It will be seen that the gentleman who
wishes to hide his identity under the nom
de plume "For a Change" takes a decidedly
pessimistic view of the economic conditions
in America. It is plain further, that he
considers that the average cost of selling
pianos is far too much. It is evident also,
that he has absorbed the Bryanic doctrine
of free silver and free trade. He evidently
believes, and we think he is sincere in his
belief, that a change will be beneficial.
That is precisely our belief, but we differ
as regards to the kind of change. It seems
to us that he does not, in his arraignment
of the present conditions, enter into the
basic laws of supply and demand which
regulate prices for commodities.
It is true that there has been a large
depreciation in the value of the articles
which he has enumerated, and he is willing,
presumably, to cast his vote for a change
without fairly considering just what that