Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUJIC TIRADE
VOL. LXXI. No. 4
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Are., New York. July 24, 1920
Single Copies 10 Cents
«2.00 Per Year
Support the New Export Bureau
T
H E Music Industries Chamber of Commerce is fast gaining a reputation for doing things and doing them
speedily and successfully, and the announcement that a competent manager has been secured for the
new export department, who will take active charge on August first, offers the latest proof of accom-
plishment.
For several years past there has been much talk in the trade of the desirability of, and, in fact, the neces-
sity for, American musical instrument manufacturers going after business in foreign fields, not alone as a means
for expansion, but to provide an outlet in the future for any surplus of manufactured stocks that might
develop, thus affording welcome protection to the trade.
There are some who have expressed the opinion that it is a waste of time to consider going after export
business when the demands of the domestic trade cannot be taken care of promptly and completely, and that
if there is any surplus of goods that surplus should go into the home market. The argument is all very fine in
its way, and would be sounder if the work for building up export trade was for the present rather than for
the future.
_ _
During the past couple of years thousands of dollars have been spent by the music industry for the ad-
vancement of music and indirectly for the development of a demand for musical instruments as a result of an
increased appreciation of music itself among the general public.
This campaign for the cause of music was kept under way and carried on enthusiastically at a time when
there were three customers anxious to take every instrument that left the factory door, and the campaign was
endorsed because it was realized there was coming a time when there would be a plentiful supply of instru-
ments, and when a customer developed as a result of music propaganda would prove mighty welcome to the
retailer.
This same attitude of looking ahead must be assumed by the trade in relation to the new export bureau.
Export trade is not built up over night. It is a long and at times a tedious process, and it is much better to have
the preliminary work all done, the markets charted, and the field waiting when the time comes for the ship
ment of American goods abroad in large quantities than to wait until manufactured goods back up into the
factories here and tend to upset the trade balance and disturb conditions. The cry in the piano trade for years
before the "war was one of over-production, and the evils of long credits, low prices and too close margins, both
in the manufacturing and selling ends, were laid to the fact that instruments were being produced faster than
they could be absorbed by the trade.
If the new export bureau, through its own efforts and with the support of the manufacturers, can develop
a substantial foreign market for our musical instruments it will represent the safety valve that will protect both
manufacturer and retailer from the troubles that develop without fail when production is faster than con-
sumption.
The necessity for such a safety valve does not seem to be as far distant as some of the more optimistic
imagine. A number of factories are sufficiently interested in disposing of instruments to send travelers about
the country—a condition that has not existed for several years. Then, too, there come reports of instruments
offered at special prices and on what may be considered to-day to be very long terms. With an export market
waiting there will be very little surplus accumulating in the factories to encourage unsound trade practices.
In going into the export field on the basis of self-protection, the music industry will not in any sense be
blazing the trail, for manufacturers in a number of other industries, the sewing machine trade for instance,
have followed the practice for many years, and have kept their domestic market sound and stable as a result.
Certainly the new export bureau is well worth supporting.