Excerpt from Memorandum on Combines and Trade Organisations: The Garton Foundation Although the control of prices was a substantial part Of the arrangement, that was only a means of attaining the real object of the Association, which was the creation of a complete organisation whereby our section of the country's trade could be made more efficient and consequently more prosperous and strong. What we have done in this direction is on record; it could not have been done apart from the regulation of prices. We have already gone a long way beyond our original programme, and are planning further developments. The Association was formed after a long period of severe depression. There was a great lack of effective organisation in the industry, and what did exist was wasteful and extravagant. All the worst features of unrestricted competition were present, duplication of patterns and plant, which were only intermittently employed, duplication of selling organisations to an extent which did nothing to increase sales, but served only to render more acute the depression from which the trade was suffering. The result of these conditions was that the resources Of the industry were so depleted as to hamper and restrain development in improved methods of production and to discourage the introduction of more modern machinery upon the capital cost of Wth there was no prospect of any adequate return. So long as the individual will to survive is stronger than the instinct of common danger. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.