ECONOMICS OF THE FISHERIES 325 



tions, the only "members" being the merchants who hold leases in the market 

 buildings. Into such a market, with perhaps forty or fifty established mer- 

 chants, a great variety of fresh fish and seafoods, and some frozen, from all 

 sources within reach, are on sale. 



Buyers may visit several shops before buying. The commission merchants 

 are therefore in competition with each other in sales and in soliciting ship- 

 ments from producing fishermen and shore dealers, often sending personal 

 representatives or drummers to fishing communities for the purpose. They 

 also supply a great deal of current market information to shippers, most of 

 which is by telegraph or telephone, and at the expense, in both directions, of 

 the merchant, the amount of which is substantial. In New York City the 

 wholesale dealers jointly maintain a Fishery Council which decorates seafood 

 trucks with attractive advertisements, does some newspaper advertising and 

 cooperates with the home economics department of the municipal radio 

 station in promoting the sale of fish and giving fishery information to the 

 consumers in New York City. These merchants perform an indispensable 

 service to producers and the consuming public and at considerable overhead 

 expense not shown in their accounts of sales. 



Nevertheless such markets have been regarded with some suspicion. The 

 basis of settlement with shippers is the selling price, but no indisputable 

 proof of what this price was is accessible to the distant shipper. Nor, in the 

 absence of standards of quality impartially determined, does the shipper have 

 any proof of inferiority if this is given as a reason for a low price returned. 

 Further questions have arisen out of the efforts of commission merchants to 

 avoid embarrassing comparisons of returns for the same kind of fish from one 

 community shipped at the same time to one or more commission merchants 

 who have no opportunity to explain to the shippers the many causes for vary- 

 ing prices for the same kinds of fish in the course of a business day. The 

 averaging of returns in one way or another may avoid the embarrassing com- 

 parisons, but in the end, raise other and perhaps still more embarrassing 

 questions, since any liberty taken with the returns opens the way for suspicion 

 that returns to fishermen may be arbitrarily fixed and not those actually 

 realized. The question of returns arises from the many legitimate causes for 

 lower prices of some shipments, such as arrivals too late in the day for best 

 prices, the arrival of large quantities of other kinds of fish, and inferior 

 quahty. Because of these and other difficulties the practice has been growing 

 of buying "on the floor," i.e., outright purchase by the city dealers, sight un- 

 seen, of fish at the fishing ports before shipment. 



The problems of commission marketing in the big cities are obviously not 

 yet solved within the present framework of the law and equity to the satisfac- 

 tion of all interested parties. The established practices now followed have 

 evolved from long experience of the commission houses, whose actions are 



