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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
EDWARD LYMAN BILL - Editor and Proprietor
J. B. SPILLANE, Managing Editor
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Departments conducted by an expert wherein all ques-
tions of a technical nature relating to the tuning, regu-
lating and repairing of pianos and player-pianos are
paper. We also publish a number of reliable technical works, information concerning which
will be cheerfully given upon request.
Player-Piano and
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NEW YORK, OCTOBER 4 , 1 9 1 3
EDITORIAL
HPHKRE has been a better tone to business in the music trade in-
X dustry'the
dust
past week, and this is due largely to the decided
fc'asing of t the stringency in the money market.
-, ; -The cr,Qp. moving season is still at its height, and this has
.fallen co'txsidie.'r^'rile money, which in a few weeks will wend its way
.back.'fc^tbe East and thus ease still more the strain which has been
'fQit:s'o:!iiar1jedly in business circles the past two months.
and the United States, generally, are not the only
"tight money," for Charles H. Steinway, president
of Steinway & Sons, who returned from Europe late last week, in
a talk with The Review, elsewhere in this issue, discusses condi-
tions in Europe, and points out that the manufacturing field over
theie is also suffering from the lack of monetary elasticity.
Financial conditions throughout Europe were greatly disturbed
by the Balkan Wars, which followed each other in succession, and
brought about not only a great demand for lives, but for money.
The need for money abroad, particularly in Germany and England,
has resulted in demands on this country that have disturbed the
financial equilibrium to a marked degree.
Rut, as we just have stated, the situation is brightening and
within a few weeks a permanent betterment is looked for, so far as
the money situation is concerned.
The business situation is well summed up in Dun's Weekly
Review as follows: "Sustained progress along conservative lines
is the keynote of advices from the leading mercantile centers. Im-
provement is not wholly uniform and some sections and branches
of trade reflect better conditions than others. In the aggregate,
however, the volume of current transactions continues large and
though hesitancy is still shown in entering upon future commit-
ments, the feeling of caution is less manifest than heretofore."
Piano merchants report collections to be improving. A condi-
tion much desired by piano manufacturers, many of whom believe
that our retail friends have not labored as strenuously as they might
in securing the cash from their customers, that would enable them
to meet their obligations to the manufacturers with whom they are
doing business, with more regularity thrn has been the case for the
past six months.
T
HE tariff bill emerged this week from the Senate and House
conferees, with the various items in which the music trade
industry is interested unchanged. Despite the strenuous opposition
made to placing a duty of 20 per cent, on ivory, which has long been
on the free list, the tariff bill goes to the President with this item
as originally listed, thus two dollars will be added to the cost of each
piano.
The changed duties, rs they affect the music trade industry in
substance, are a reduction from 45 per cent, to 35 per cent, on musi-
cal instruments, piano actions and metal strings; a reduction from
45 per cent, to 25 per cent, on talking machines; a reduction from
20 per cent, to 15 per cent, on veneers, from 25 per cent, to 10 per
cent, on varnishes; from 20 per cent, to 10 per cent, on pianoforte
leather; from 55 per cent, and 44 cents per pound to 35 per cent, on
felts; from 25 per cent, to 20 per cent, on gut strings, while metals
are either substantially reduced or placed on the free list.
While it will take some time to find out exactly what effect
this new measure will have on business generally, still the leading
members of the various industries, as interviewed by prominent
New York newspapers, state that the reductions in the tariff have
been largely discounted and that the changes will not have the dis-
turbing effect anticipated at the time that the bill was introduced.
T
HE second contribution from the pen of Elbert Hubbard, one
of the greatest and most fascinating of to-day's philosopher-
writers, appears elsewhere in this issue of The Review and makes
helpful and interesting reading, for there are few men possessing
his inimitable and lucid style, or his keen, perceptive sense of values.
These articles, which appear in the first issue of each month
in The Review, embrace logic, reason and determination, and are
well worthy of close perusal.
FOLLOWING THE UPLIFTED HAND.
(Continued from page 3.)
,v.
the current of invisible force transmitted to them; he faces the way the pointing hand indicates,
and forgetting fear, forgetting self, experiencing only the overmastering influence of the directing
hand, he plunges on to death or victory.
So around the great business leaders are gathered selected staffs of trained men who will
follow the genius who has demonstrated his intellectual powers of leadership. They follow the
uplifted hand.
All of us cannot be at the heads of great industries, but the man who is at the front of a small
enterprise can make his position more secure and more profitable if he will figure along advanced
lines of human endeavor rather than to grovel in the dust of defeat
and decry competition, which is another way of saying that he does „ ,
\iw,v\ rti/H'
not possess the courage to meet it. He should gather round him men uC^jDVVvlMfYVVW^
who will follow the uplifted hand.