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Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
VOL. LXIL No. 16
Published Every Saturday by the Estate of Edward Lyman Bill at 373 4th Ave., New York, April 15, 1916
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Business Barometer
E
VEN as the strongest sunlight throws the deepest shadows, just so is the sunlight of our present pros-
perity casting a deep shadow across the economic future of our country, a shadow which foretells the
fierce struggle for commercial supremacy which will be waged after the close of the present war.
Leaders of public thought in every field of activity are awakening to the necessity for what is
being termed commercial preparedness. Thus far the European war has either directly or indirectly been
the cause of prosperity which is greater than any we have enjoyed for some years past.
The conclusion of the great European struggle and the re-entry of the present European combatants into
the field of commercial, rather than military, activity, will find the United States facing' a situation which will
require concerted action and unceasing- vigilance if our present prosperity is to be maintained.
It is axiomatic that thickly populated nations must sell their surplus products in order to achieve com-
mercial success. Even after peace has been declared all of the European nations will be overpopulated,
when compared to the comparatively sparsely populaied condition of this nation, and the need for the re-
establishment of a favorable balance of trade and the necessity for ready cash will result in greatly increased
productiveness on the part of all of these countries.
Even now there are rumors of great stores of manufactured products being accumulated by war-
ring nations, which are to be released as soon as peace is declared. When the war is over, foreign trade,
always an essential to European prosperity, will become of paramount necessity.
It is reasonable to believe that the bitterness engendered by the present great struggle will not be oblit-
erated by a few pen scratches on a treaty of peace, and it is not without reason to believe that for many years
to come the belligerent nations will boycott the products of an "enemy." Therefore, their surplus
manufactures must be marketed in the New World, rather than in the Old, which means that competition
in the South American field, and even in this country, will be keener and more acute than ever before.
Low wages, long hours, efficient production, and the manufacturing skill of many generations will be the
weapons with which our European competitors will seek to win the battle of commercial supremacy. Against
these weapons American manufacturers will be powerless to contend, unless they prepare for the struggle
immediately by the reduction of overhead expense, the elimination of unnecessary expenditure, greater effi-
ciency in manufacturing and in selling and a thorough and comprehensive knowledge of the needs of the trade
generally, not only in this country, but in export countries as well.
The piano trade needs this preparation fully as much as does any other line of industry in the United
States. South America offers one of several fields open to the American piano manufacturer to-day.
Notwithstanding the present wonderful activity in the home trade, and the practical monopoly which American
manufacturers have in the piano trade in this country, the importance of and necessity for a growing
export trade will be felt more and more by piano manufacturers as the years go by. In fact, it is the opinion
of many well-informed students, that the future of this industry lies as largely in export as in domestic fields.
Realizing this, the wise piano manufacturer will endeavor to secure so strong a foothold in the export field
that when the European manufacturers again enter this field, American pianos will have become so strongly
entrenched in the favor of our export customers that their trade will be successfully held against the
•onslaught of European competition.
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If this condition does not obtain, and American piano manufacturers lose the wonderful opportunity
now afforded them by the South American and other markets, they have but themselves to blame.
European competition of the keenest sort will eventually and inevitably come. Unless it is met ade-
quately, scientifically, and successfully, American manufacturers will lose, and deservedly so, the greatest oppor-
tunity which has confronted them within the memory of the present generation,