INTRODUCTION. ! 19 | 
Our New York branch house sends us the following report of business in its own 
branch of commerce during the year 1913: — 
“We remarked in our report of October 1913, that the last few months of the period 
under review showed a somewhat forced business on account of the impending tariff 
revision, a condition which remained also after the enactment of the new tariff, for 
the simple reason that all business houses continued to provide their regular trade 
with duty-free goods as long as their stocks lasted, and since the stocks were, as a 
rule, rather ample, we may say that the entire last half of the past year has stood 
under the influence of the new tariff. 
The extraordinarily large business which marks the year 1913 has, therefore, at 
least partly to be attributed to the above outlined singular conditions and it had 
further to be expected that a certain retrogression in business would naturally take 
place during the first months of the new year. That this recession has been only 
slight in our particular case is again a sign of the perfectly healthy condition of our 
business, and, besides, the natural consequence of the strict tendency on our side 
not to encourage speculative utilization of the apparent advantages brought about by 
the new tariff regulations, which, in this way, could easily become a pitfall for the 
speculator. 
Speaking about the influence the new tariff has had on the various industries in 
which we are specially interested, we may repeat from our report of April 1913 that 
we expected “American trading and manufacturing circles, which had solved harder 
problems in the past, would find ways and means to overcome the impending diffi- 
culties and to adjust themselves to the given conditions”. And so it has come. 
Judging from our intimate relations with the three main groups of trade on which 
our business depends, the Manufacturing Perfumery, Soap and Flavouring Extract 
industries, we may safely state that the greater burdens which the new tariff has 
imposed upon them are not showing any detrimental influence, — business has simply 
adjusted itself to the changed conditions. 
A spontaneous and very material help in this connection must be ascribed to the 
fact that the price formation of many of the most important staple commodities has 
been such during this period, that the increase in price, caused by the newly imposed 
duty, was entirely counterbalanced by their retrogressive price development. So Oils, 
like cassia, lemon and orange, have sold after the enactment of the new tariff at 
actually lower prices than at the time before the enactment, under a duty-free entry 
into the United States. 
The price formation during the current year has, as above indicated, so far been 
generally in favor of the buyer. Some commodities have taken actual slumps in 
prices, as, for instance, the Messina Essences: lemon and orange. Also the different 
grades of geranium oil and most of the specifically American oils have shown a 
downward tendency in price. This condition has, to a certain extent, influenced the 
contract business in the beginning of the year, which, with an upward tendency of 
the market, would naturally have shown a more lively character. In this connection 
we may also state that we have made it our steadfast policy, in the interest of our 
patrons, not to encourage contracting, when the tendency of the market would point 
to lower prices later on in the season. The aggregate of the contract business has, 
however, been perfectly normal, though same has been drawn out over a longer 
period than usual. It is true that the last year has set a very conspicuous pace of 
progress in business, but we nevertheless expect to keep up with the further develop- 
ment at an equal rate of expansion. This expectation is based upon the presumption 
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