A uniform Cost Accounting System would eliminate price cutting and other abuses which are due primarily to a misconception or ignorance of the actual cost of production.

To the end, therefore, that these abuses may be eliminated, and a common basis of discussing costs may be established, we reaffirm our previous recommendation and endorsement of the Midland Club Cost Accounting System and urge all manufacturers who do not have a satisfactory Cost Accounting System to make arrangements to have the System installed in their plants. at the earliest opportunity.

CONVENTION BUREAUS

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CONVENTION

BUREAUS

Adopted 1917:

CODE OF ETHICS

1. The members of the Association of Convention Bureaus shall offer no money in the form of bonuses, to aid in securing conventions and any expense incurred in financing conventions from the funds of convention bureaus, shall be contracted and paid for by the Bureau itself.

2. Members of this Association shall not furnish to conventions or similar bodies, free of charge, the use of any hall or building for an exhibit in which space is sold, or for an attraction to which admission fees are charged, where the proceeds from such space or admissions are not directly applied to the defraying of legitimate convention expenses.

3. Members of the Association are unalterably opposed to furnishing the officers or members of associations holding conventions, the free use of guest rooms in hotels or otherwise, and will use their best efforts to discourage this practice on all occasions.

4. A registration Fee System is heartily endorsed by this Association and each member shall strive vigorously to promote its adoption by all associations and organizations holding conventions.

5. Members shall be expected to give freely to other members any information requested regarding conventions, but shall discourage the giving of such confidential information to bureaus not affiliated with this Association.

6. This Association invites the co-operation of any city representative, engaged in the business of securing conventions and tourists, who subscribes to the principles of the organization. 7. Evasion of the plain intent of these declarations or intentional failure to comply with the provisions of the Constitution, By-Laws and Ethics, by members of this Association, will be considered sufficient reason for the cancellation of such membership, subject to the action of the Association at an annual meeting.

CREDIT, COMMERCIAL

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CREDIT MEN

Adopted at national conventions since 1914:

CANONS OF COMMERCIAL ETHICS

Canon No. 1.-It is improper for a business man to participate with a lawyer in the doing of an act that would be improper and unprofessional for the lawyer to do.

Canon No. 2.-It undermines the integrity of business for business men to support lawyers who indulge in unprofessional practices. The lawyer who will do wrong things for one business man injures all business men. He not only injures his profession, but he is a menace to the business community.

Canon No. 3.-To punish and expose the guilty is one thing; to help the unfortunate but innocent debtor to rise is another; but both duties are equally important, for both duties make for a higher moral standard of action on the part of business

men.

Canon No. 4.-In times of trouble, the unfortunate business man has the right to appeal to his fellow business men for advice and assistance. Selfish interests must be subordinated in such a case, and all must cooperate to help. If the debtor's assets are to be administered, all creditors must join in cooperating. To fail in such a case is to fall below the best standards of commercial and association ethics.

Canon No. 5.-The pledged word upon which another. relies is sacred among business gentlemen. The order for a bill of goods upon which the seller relies is the pledged word of a business man. No gentleman in business, without a reason that should be satisfactory to the seller, may cancel an order. He would not ask to be relieved of his obligation upon a note or check, and his contracts of purchase and sale should be equally binding. The technical defense that he has not bound himself in writing may avail him in the courts of law, but not of business ethics.

Canon No. 6.-Terms of sale, as a part of a contract touching both net and discount maturity, are for buyer and seller alike binding and mutual, unless modified by previous or concurrent mutual agreement.

No business gentleman may, in the performance of his

contracts, seek small or petty advantage, or throw the burden of a mistake in judgment upon another, but must keep his word as good as his bond, and when entering into a contract of sale faithfully observe the terms, and thus redeem the assumed promise.

Canon No. 7.-It is always improper for one occupying a fiduciary position to make a secret personal profit therefrom. A member of a creditor's committee, for example, may not, without freely disclosing the fact, receive any compensation for his services, for such practices lead to secret preferences and tend to destroy the confidence of business men in each other. "No man can serve two masters."

Canon No. 8.-The stability of commerce and credits rests upon honorable methods and practices of business men in their relations with one another, and it is improper for one creditor to obtain or seek to obtain a preference over other creditors of equal standing from the estate of an insolvent debtor, for in so doing he takes, or endeavors to take, more than his just proportion of the estate and therefore what properly belongs to others.

Canon No. 9.-Cooperation is unity of action, though not necessarily unity of thought. When the administration of an insolvent estate is undertaken by the creditors through friendly instrumentalities, or when, after critical investigation, creditors representing a large majority of the indebtedness advise the acceptance of a composition as representing a fair and just distribution of a debtor's assets, it is uncooperative and commercially unethical for a creditor to refuse the friendly instrument or the composition arbitrarily and force thereby a form of administration that will be prejudicial and expensive to the interests of everyone concerned.

Canon No. 10.-Our credit system is founded on principles, the underlying elements of which are cooperation and reciprocity in interchange. When ledger and credit information is sought and given in a spirit inspiring mutual confidence, a potent factor for safety in credit granting has been set at work.

The interchange of ledger and credit information cannot fulfill its best and most important purposes unless guarded with equal sense of fairness and honesty by both the credit department that asks for the information and the credit department that furnishes it.

Recognizing that the conferring of a benefit creates an obligation, reciprocity in the interchange of credit information is an indispensable foundation principle; and a credit department seeking information should reciprocate with a statement of its own experience in the expectation of getting the information

sought; and a credit department of which information is sought should respond fairly and accurately because the fundamentals of credit interchange have been observed in the manner the request was made of it.

Failure to observe and defend this principle would tend to defeat the binding together of credit grantors for skilful work -a vital principle of the credit system-and make the offending department guilty of an unfair and unethical act.

Canon No. 11.-The foundation principle of our credit structure-cooperation-should dominate and control whenever the financial affairs of a debtor become insolvent or involved, that equality thereby may be assured to the creditors themselves and justice to the debtor.

The control of any lesser principle produces waste, diffusion of effort and a sacrifice of interests, material and moral, with a separation of creditor and debtor that is offensive to the best laws of credit procedure.

Cooperation and unity save, construct and prevent; therefore, individual action pursued regardless of other interests in such situations, whether secretly or openly expressed by either creditor or debtor, is unwise and unethical.

Canon No. 12.-The healthy expansion of commerce. and credits, with due regard to the preservation of their stability and healthfulness, demands an exact honesty in all of the methods and practices upon which they are founded. Advertising is an important feature in business building: it should represent and never misrepresent; it should win reliance and never cover deceit; it should be the true expression of the commodity or the service offered. It must be deemed, therefore, highly improper and unethical for advertisements to be so phrased or expressed directly or by implication to mislead or deceive. In this department the finest sense of honesty and fairness must be preserved, and the right relations of men with one another in commerce and credits clearly preserved.

Canon No. 13

"Permanent success can not be divorced from character.

"Character is indestructible as a granite boulder against which waves of circumstances beat in vain.

"Character does not cringe or falter before difficulties. "Character can not lie nor deceive under temptation.

"Character can not withhold that which belongs to others, though secretiveness may not be difficult.

"Character is the guarantee of justice and fairness in all personal relations.