Proceedings at the conference between the deputation from the London Chemists' Association, etc., etc., and Burroughs Wellcome & Co. : held at the Holborn Viaduct Hotel, London, June 21st and 28th and August 2nd, 1906.

Date:
[1906?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Proceedings at the conference between the deputation from the London Chemists' Association, etc., etc., and Burroughs Wellcome & Co. : held at the Holborn Viaduct Hotel, London, June 21st and 28th and August 2nd, 1906. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    substituting ; he was doing that which was honest. He was paying 5s. 9d. and getting 6s.— he was honest! Mr. WELLCOME : We are discussing the question of fraudulent acts—when one thing is ordered and another thing is supplied. Mr. PENTNEY : I am only saying one is the cause of the other. I think. Mr. WELLCOME : When you have a malady of that kind you cannot cure it by a percentage of profits. A man who would do that would sell adulterated quinine for pure quinine, if he could make more money by it. Where one thing is definitely asked for, and another supplied, as that article—that is fraud—that is held in the Courts to be fraud. Mr. PENTNEY : Yes, that is illegal. Illegality takes place on account of the profit on the goods. Mr. WELLCOME : It is said that men sometimes rob their employers because their wages are small. That is the same principle, but that does not justify the offence. That plea is often put in when the man has ample remuneration; it is a very popular plea. Mr. PENTNEY: No, there is no justification whatever. If a man is asked for Burroughs Wellcome and Co.’s goods he has aright to supply them, or else it is dishonourable. I quite agree with you there. It does not excuse a man’s dishonesty, I know that. Mr. TRUMAN : When preparations, such as yours, of a high class and well known in the trade, are sold by Stores, they are sold not for the sake of selling them, but simply for the sake of drawing customers—by selling those or practically giving them away at cost price or less, simply and solely as a draw for getting customers for other things on which they get a large profit. It is precisely the same as the Stores selling pickles at a price a little man could not, at practically no profit. In practically the same way your articles are sold. If you were to reduce your prices to the trade, it would be of no use whatever unless you protected them, because these stores would immediately sell them again at precisely the same price as you quoted them, simply making your articles the “ monkey’s paw ” to draw in the other trade. The action I have taken the last 20 years with regard to Soap is that I simply do not keep it. I have lost nothing by not keeping it. When there is a profit of something like 2s. on £75 worth I decline to keep it. I should be sorry to say the same thing of anybody else’s preparations. I think when a thing is so well known as your articles, you will be benefiting the trade by better prices and profits, and you will be doing no harm to the public ; and, as a minor question, you are benefiting yourselves. I am sure the legitimate trade—1 am not talking about the outsider, the unqualified glorified oilshops—will support you in every possible way. I have a letter from a chemist in the country. He saw in the journals that we had a meeting, and he wrote to me that he had been loyal to Burroughs Wellcome and Co. for 25 years, but things had come to such a pass that he would be obliged to keep cheap substitutes. He was very sorry to have to do it, but he was obliged to in self-defence. Mr. WELLCOME : The legitimate chemist is sometimes unfairly competed with ; he supplies the genuine goods, and the cheap competitor may supply the imitation as genuine at a lower price, and then the patient comes to the legitimate chemist, and says, “ I got it from such and such a shop for so much less ”—under the false impression that he obtained the genuine article. Those are the unfair traders who are enemies to you and to us. They are enemies to the medical profession and to all legitimate business. That is the sort of thing that we have done our best to stop, and I know we have very materially reduced it. c 2 (31 Fraud. Would sell adulterated quinine as pure quinine. Robbing employers. No justifica- tion. Why prices of staples are cut. Unfair traders.
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