Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
should profit by his business acumen,
which enabled him to correctly foresee
coming events.
Suppose it were the other way. Sup-
pose the market had fallen and manufac-
turers were largely stocked with materials
TWENTY-FIRST YEAR.
at the low water mark. Some would im-
• EDWARD LYMAN BILL-
mediately make the break, and there would
Editor and Proprietor
be a crash in wholesale prices. Would the
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY
manufacturers expect the dealers to pay
~™
3 East 14th St., New York
~~
the high water mark when there had been
SUBSCRIPTION (including postage), United States,
a tremendous fall in all accessories neces-
Mexico and Canada, fzjx> per year ; all other countries,
$300.
sary to the production of pianos?
ADVERTISEflENTS, $2.00 per inch, single column, per
insertion. On quarterly or yearly contracts a special dis-
count is allowed. Advertising Pages $50.00, opposite read'
ing matter $75.00.
REMITTANCES, in other than currency form, should
be made payable to Edward Lyman Bill.
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Clast Matter.
NEW YORK, AUGUST 26, 1899.
TELEPHONE NUMBER,
1745—EIGHTEENTH STREET.
THE KEYNOTE.
The first week of each month, The Review will
contain a supplement embodying the literary
and musical features which have heretofore
appeared in The Keynote. This amalgamation
will be effected without in any way trespassing
on our regular news service. The Review will
continue to remain, as before, essentially a
trade paper.
PIANOS AND PRICES.
O T I L L prices advance.
Chickering & Sons did not evade an
issue. They came out squarely without
equivocation and announced to their agents
an advance of prices.
As we have stated before, this should
have supplied strength to the wavering
and have stiffened the vertebra; of the
weak. The Chickering institution grappled
with a business problem in strictly a busi-
ness way.
No dealer to-day who is a business man
can deny that a manufacturer is justified
in advancing his prices. There is a gen-
eral feeling—in fact a number of manu-
facturers have stated that they will be
forced to raise when their present stock of
materials shall have been exhausted. Such
action on their part shows unusual gen-
erosity and a desire to permit the dealer to
enjoy a profit which the present conditions
of the market do not rightly entitle him
to do.
Take any industry, for illustration, the
iron. Ask any iron man in this country if
he is waiting until his present stock is ex-
hausted before he advances his prices. It
will be found that his prices are advanced
to-day, that if he has a good stock on hand
at the old figures, it only shows a clear
business intelligence on his part to have
foreseen trade conditions and adjusted his
affairs to conform with them.
A manufactured article to-day in any in-
dustry is worth what it costs to duplicate,
and if a manufacturer is fortunate enough
to have a goodly stock of material on hand
purchased at the low water mark, then he
business instincts, ever alert, ever quick to
turn a point advantageously. He is the
trade missionary, capable of a great deal of
good when properly regarded.
The demands made upon the average
traveler were never more exacting than
to-day. In the old days, the word "drum-
mer" was believed by many to be synonym-
ous with the whole catalogue of deadly
sins, and much was attributed to him in
the way of weaknesses that was unmerited—
he was purely a creature of environment,
forced by conditions to work along well
defined lines.
Dealers are intelligent. They are aware
of business conditions and they know that
The modern traveler has changed materi-
a piano is worth to-day what it costs to du- ally. The days of birds and bottles have
plicate, and every manufacturer who has departed, and in this age of close competi-
on hand a large stock of materials should tion all extra frills have become obsolete,
advance his prices on his manufactured and to-day the clean cut, forceful, intelli-
stock, so that it is in harmony with the gent traveler is a recognized force in this
present market prices.
trade as well as in all others.
That is sound business, and the Chicker-
ing house took the lead and that one act
THE POSITION OF LABOR.
shows what a clear-headed business insti- O T R I K E S are multiplying. Workmen
tution it is. Dealers have received gener-
know full well of the accelerated busi-
ous treatment at the hands of manufac- ness conditions, and they are aware that
turers. They have been given large manufacturers are much more liable to
values, and they should not complain when accede to their demands when they are
piano manufacturers change their prices pressed to fill orders than when there is
to conform with the present increase and stagnation in all departments.
value placed upon all commodities which
Piano workmen are as well acquainted
enter into the construction of pianos. In
with these facts as are men in every other
fact there is no doubt in our minds but
industry, and from information which has
that dealers too will have to advance their
reached us from several sources we are in-
prices in the near future, for, after all, the
clined to believe . that strikes in this trade
consumer pays the advance, and with the
will continue to increase in numbers.
upward tendency in everything, including
While the outlook is not serious, it is
labor, he can well afford to.
threatening. Labor organizations, through
Well-paid workingmen mean that their their leaders, make unjust demands, and
families are large consumers, and that there as Julius Krakauer remarked last week, no
is an opportunity to sell them pianos and manufacturer likes to yield at the point of
other articles of home adornment.
the pistol.
The matter of advancing prices should
There is no question but that there are
be hailed with delight rather than with de- many fair and just demands made by labor,
murrence. It affords all of us an oppor- yet there are many unreasonable ones, and
tunity to widen the margin of profits, for it can truthfully be said that while here
in good times, men are not counting the and there an employer is to be found who
nickels with the same desire of restriction will grind labor to the dust, the great
that they are when things are a bit pinched. majority of employers willingly pay as good
wages as their own earnings permit.
THE TRAVELERS.
This has been strongly emphasized by
'T'HE travelers' season of activity is now the voluntary advances so generally made
beginning, and the country will be as soon as times improved, even before the
girdled and regirdled by the active ambas- scarcity of workmen had developed, for
sadors of piano institutions. Though the scarcity there is, and no one knows this
school through which the members of the better than New York piano manufacturers,
traveling fraternity have passed—the school for the hard times of the past few years
of human nature—does not confer upon has driven many skilled piano makers from
them any technical degrees, it has, never- the benches to other vocations. There are
theless, given them a splendid and varied hundreds of men employed on the surface
education—an education fitting them to cars in New York, who years ago were
mpre successfully cope with the world, skilled piano makers.
than has been obtained at any college.
It is to be hoped for the credit of the
The successful traveler is a man of keen workmen that their short-comings as now