MARKETING OF BUTTER 429 



are still largely used as a basis of settlement with creameries. 

 But in this country quotations made by price committees of 

 merchants have not been looked upon with favor by govern- 

 ment officials, especially when they did not accurately repre- 

 sent prevailing values, and it was usually found that the tend- 

 ency of most price committees of merchants was to keep the 

 official quotations below prevailing selling values. Several of 

 our trade organizations were thus forced by the government to 

 discontinue the so-called official quotations, but some still con- 

 tinue the practice." 1 



In 1907 the Mercantile Exchange of New York was sued by 

 the Government on the ground of fraudulent manipulation of 

 quotations, with the result of prohibiting the Exchange from 

 issuing quotations not representing the value of butter based on 

 actual sales by first hand receivers. In a decision rendered by 

 the Supreme Court it was decided that this quotation committee 

 was a combination in restraint of trade and the practice was 

 decided to be illegal. Realizing that the actual sales under the 

 "Call" of the Exchange were too small to justify the basing of 

 quotations on these sales, the Exchange discontinued the issu- 

 ance of official quotations and the determination of price quo- 

 tations was assumed by outside market reporters. 



Since then the firm of Urner-Barry Company, with the help 

 of a most efficient force of trained market reporters, has as- 

 sumed the responsibility of establishing daily price quotations 

 in New York. After the "Call" each day, having taken into con- 

 sideration the bids and offers under the "Call," the market re- 

 porter makes a canvass of the market, calling on the buyers and 

 sellers and ascertaining the prices at which they are doing busi-* 

 ness through private negotiations; then, at about noon each 

 day he announces the quotations .he will publish in his paper 

 for the various grades of butter. These quotations are accepted 

 as the settling basis for the day and these are the quotations 

 that are sent broadcast throughout the country. 



In Chicago the quotation committee met a similar fate, the 

 courts prohibiting its functions, unless quotations were made on 

 the basis of actual sales, and the making of butter quotations 

 passed into the hands of outside market reporters. 



1 Making Quotations Comments, The Buttermakers' Discussion Club, 

 New York Produce Review, July 12, 1916. 



