ow another thing: Of course, not every manufacturer in the
business owns his mills. It is a fact that since the close times of
the past few years the majority of the firms are carrying mortgages
on their mills; and some of them in the West are paying as high as
eight or ten per cent. interest. But with the combined capital of
all the firms in the trade at our back, we can change all that.
Either by a guaranty, or by assuming the obligations, we can bring
the interest charges on every mill in the association down to four
or five per cent. at most.

We have been paying enormous rates to fire insurance companies.
They are not as familiar with our business as we are ourselves, and
they don't know just how much risk there really is; so they charge
us a rate which they make sure is high enough. We can combine
together and insure ourselves on the mutual plan; and by
stipulating that each firm shall establish and keep up such
precautions against fire as an expert may direct, we can not only
reduce the cost of our insurance to that of our actual losses, but
we can make these a very small amount.

It may be said that we might have done all these things without
forming any trust to control prices. But the practical fact was
that we could not. There was so much "bad blood" between some of
the different firms in the business, from the rivalry and the sharp
competition for trade, that as long as that was kept up it was
impossible to get them to have any thing to do with each other in a
business way. It was no small task to get these old feuds patched
up; but some of the best and squarest men in the business went
right into the work, and at meetings of the association, and
privately, exerted all their influence to forward this coming
together for mutual aid and protection. They did it
conscientiously, too, I think, believing that it was necessary to
save many of us from financial ruin; and that we were not bound,
under any circumstances, to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of the
public. The trust has been formed, as every one knows, and many of
the things we planned to do have been already accomplished. We have
stopped adulterations on all goods made by members of the trust;
and the improvement in the quality of linseed oil which has been
effected is an im