TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



107 



were going to buy less grapes for the wineries, and we said to the 

 growers that if they would all join the Association and we had a per- 

 centage large enough to justify it we would fix the price as high as it 

 had ever been fixed in the history of the Association, and that was 

 exactly the price which the Association fixed. Having the fixing of the 

 price of seeded raisins as well as of loose, we fixed a lower price upon 

 seeded by a cent a pound. We found then that the crop was going to 

 be a large one, and we were satisfied, from the importations of the 

 foreign article, that the market would not justify any such price, and 

 we immediately, and before hardly any raisins were sold at all — before 

 we had any raisins to sell — reduced the price upon the loose to where 

 it is now, and raised it a notch on the seeded. Now, on the goods that 

 had been sold at that time, at the first prices, we rebated the difference 

 in the prices, to every man or house that had purchased a pound of 

 raisins from us; so Mr. Jacobs is entirely mistaken Avhen he says that 

 the trade is dissatisfied because we reduced the price and they had to 

 sustain a loss. We rebated the difference between the first and the 

 second price to every purchaser who had bought a pound of raisins 

 from us, we rebated to him that difference. Now, I just wanted this 

 Convention to understand that. 



MR. SPRAGUE. Mr. Chairman, just a few words on some of the 

 points that have been brought out. In the first place, I want to say 

 that I was connected with the second year's operations of the Raisin- 

 Growers' Association. The experience of that year was that, under the 

 system of marketing then in vogue, it was possible for the commercial 

 packers, through their brokers, to make a cut in the brokerage, which 

 was virtually a cut in price, and that was done secretly and fraudu- 

 lently, for they had promised to do no such thing. The co-operative 

 packers of course could not be partners in the fraud, and we were left 

 with a very considerable portion of the raisins of our constituents upon 

 our hands and subject to serious loss in our profits as co-ox^erative 

 packers. Now, that is a bad feature which is necessarily connected 

 with that form of organization. I want to say this, also, that through 

 all of our connections at the East at this time comes the same testi- 

 mony, that the Eastern jobbers have lost confidence in the Raisin 

 Association. Now, confidence is the most precious thing in business. 

 Let me say, further, that the very failure to sustain the confidence 

 of the trade during the first year of the operations of the Raisin- 

 Growers' Association led, in my judgment, to the breaking down 

 of prune prices. Now, I speak advisedly concerning that, for you all 

 know that there was a cutting-under, the loss of half a cent a pound in 

 some cases to buyers who had already purchased at regular trade 

 prices, by these subsequent cuts, and the trade then lost confidence. I 

 remember Mr. Kearney testified at our last convention at San Fran- 



