TWENTY-EIGHTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



81 



like to know if the association has the right to receive the balance of 

 this fruit uncontrolled to the extent of their 50 per cent in conjunction 

 with the 50 per cent that the buyers' association has a right to receive? 



MR. NAFTZGER. Of course this is getting into deep water. But 

 nevertheless we have endeavored to make this organization so that 

 there is nothing under cover at all, so that there is nothing mysterious 

 about it. You can readily see that when we undertook to bring into 

 one combination factors which had hitherto been discordant or antago- 

 nistic, one of them operating on a purely co-operative basis at cost and 

 the other speculative in character or operating for a profit, we had a 

 difficulty to overcome. The co-operative members could not be put 

 upon a profit-bearing basis, naturally. • The others could not be put 

 upon an absolutely co-operative basis, else they would go out of busi- 

 ness. You can readily see that the man who has got his money 

 invested in packing-houses over the country, if he continues to operate 

 at all, must operate at a profit. There is no use pretending that he 

 doesn't, because he expects to have his profit. Hitherto he has been 

 charging the grower from 45 to 50 cents per box for packing and market- 

 ing his fruit. To-day he is charging him 31 cents for packing and 8^ 

 cents a box for marketing, or, in gross, 39| cents as compared to 45 and 

 50 formerly charged. That is a material lessening. But, as I have said 

 to you, the important thing is not the reduction in the cost of operating 

 so much as in the steadying of the markets. Well, now, if the Ex- 

 change was thrown open under this consolidation, you can see what 

 would happen in the nature of things: nine out of every ten of all the 

 people outside, probably, would come to the Exchange operating on a 

 co-operative basis, and the other man is put out of business. That we 

 could not do. Now, he says to us: "You are only interested in your 

 members, aren't you ? What interest have you in the people who have 

 never been with you ? You have been trying here for years to induce 

 the fruit-growers to come into the association, and how can you claim 

 any interest in those who have refused to come in ?" There is no answer 

 to his question. We may have an incidental interest in our neighbors' 

 children, but we have much more in our own. And when we have pro- 

 vided for our own families, we have pretty nearly done our primary 

 duty. I don't mean by that that we ignore other people; and we did 

 not. But he says: " Then maintain your status. All you have a right 

 to ask is to provide for your own members." And we did. We pro- 

 vided perpetually, or so long as this organization lasts, for the marketing 

 of every pound of fruit of every member of every organization or 

 association connected with the Exchange in the State of California. 

 Now, he says: "As we have hitherto been operating with the rest of the 

 growers outside of the Exchange, we propose to put at their service 

 these packing facilities, and offer them the marketing agency, the Cali- 

 6 — F-GC 



