into the belief that you have a potentiality of wealth in your plant.

If you want your plant to show up well as an asset you must buy good appliances to begin with, have them handled carefully as you go along, repair them as soon as anything goes wrong; and when you think any piece of apparatus is getting obsolete, sell it off as speedily as possible, whilst something can be got for it, instead of waiting till the time comes when people will not buy it at any price.

If you have consistently written off something for depreciation of your plant every year, you will soon be able to tell whether it will pay you to sacrifice some of the old stuff, and have new and up-to-date material in its place. The times are always changing, and you must change with them, if you would be "in the swim." Stock-taking should tell you if you are moving with the times. If you are not, you might as well retire at once, for you will have to before long; and it will probably be under unpleasant circumstances.

Money Back if Not Satisfied

"A satisfied customer is the best advertisement."MARSHALL FIELD.

No business man likes to refund money paid for goods supplied. It is 'ag'in natur',' as some bucolic philosopher has remarked; but, as a matter of fact, every good business man does it, whether he says it in his advertisements or not, because

CALIFORNIA

THAT'S THE POINT!

he knows the worst advertisement he can have is to make someone keep what he doesn't want.

It is best to let people feel when they come to you that they can take it for granted if you sell them something which is not quite satisfactory, you will take it back and return the money, if proper goods cannot be given in place of the faulty article. The tradesman whose goods are really reliable will not have much trouble about taking things back. If merchandise is returned in good condition so that it may be placed in stock and sold again, there can be no good reason why a customer should be compelled to keep it.

An American firm has been advertising money back' for the past thirty years; and they find it pays. The advertisement says: 'We do not offer money back because we think you will want it back, because we are pretty sure you will not.' That's just the point. A man who advertises thus, does it to show that he has the greatest possible confidence in his goods. It is a guarantee.

The firm in question not only advertise in this way, but they act up to it. Every salesman in the house is instructed that in case anything is returned the money must be paid back without a word of argument, and without question. After the customer has the money in his hand, it is thought to be time enough to find out what is the matter with the goods. The idea in that store is, that if a man brings back something and says 'I find this was not what I wanted, I would like to have my money back,' he gets the money first. Then

the salesman asks the customer what is the matter with the article ; and if he doesn't think they could give him something that would suit better. The customer, with the money in his pocket and his heart full of gratitude for being let off so easily, feels in duty bound to make some purchase to replace the article complained of; so that in the end the dealer has lost nothing by it.

The manager of a big furniture house who was asked his opinion on this question of refunding money, used a very good argument in its favour. He says: 'If a woman buys a bedstead here and finds there is a crack in it, the longer she keeps that bed in the house the bigger that crack gets. She isn't any better satisfied after the bed has been in the house a year than she was when it first came ; and if anybody asks her if this is a good place to buy furniture, she will say "No," and she will refer to that cracked bedstead. She will make it cost us about fifty times the price of the bed. If, on the other hand, when she complains, we send up and get the defective piece, and substitute another perfect one, without making any fuss about it, she will tell her friends that we are fair people; and that we treat our customers courteously; and that everything we sell must be reliable or we will take it back. In this way she will give us advertising which we could not pay for with money.'

Now these are ideal principles which everyone ought to act up to; and which, no doubt, every good business man tries to act up to. There are,

SUSPICIOUS CUSTOMERS

however, times when a customer is exacting and exasperating. There are some customers who are reckless in ordering; and therefore are disappointed to find the goods are not what they expected. They have not read, or have misread, the catalogue description, if they have ordered through the post; or, if they have selected the goods personally, they have not taken pains to investigate the points and purposes of the articles. Machinery, mechanical appliances, tools, apparatus, instruments, and the like are often returned simply because the customer does not know how to use them, though he thinks he does, and consequently fails to appreciate the same. Such cases are extremely worrying to the manufacturer, who knows perfectly well from the reports of numerous other customers that the goods are all right. It' is a hard trial to give in to such a customer; but it is best done, unless there is a chance of seeing the customer personally, to investigate his complaint and explain the working of the thing.

Occasionally one will meet with a customer who is hopelessly prejudiced, and has made up his mind not to have the article he has purchased. It is best not to argue with such a man; give him his money back right away; or give him credit for it if not paid for. He will feel satisfied with himself to score off the manufacturer; and will be friendly disposed for future Business. Such men often turn out the best customers in the end; because they are generally men who mean to pay, but don't believe in paying for something they are

dissatisfied with. A customer who orders lavishly and is easy to please, may generally be looked upon with suspicion, if he does not pay cash. Good business men have a sneaking regard for a customer who haggles over a price to the last farthing, and pays promptly to extract the utmost possible discount. One such customer is worth a score of 'dead beat' procrastinators whose accounts are always hopelessly overdue.

Try to Please the Customer

"Dare to be true, nothing can need a lie ; A fault which needs it most grows two thereby." -HERBERT.

Ir may be urged that it is easy enough for a dealer to take back goods which have been sold from stock, and can again be put into stock; but it is different in the case of a manufacturer who makes goods to order. That is very true, and it is here that the greatest difficulty of this money back' problem comes in. It may be that the goods are of no earthly use to the manufacturer if a customer throws them back on his hands. But is there any good purpose to be served by fighting to make the customer take what he doesn't want ? Is it worth while, for the sake of saving this small loss at the present, to forfeit all further orders? Depend upon it there must be some fault in the goods. A customer would not return them out of mere capriciousness. Try to find out what the fault is, and remedy it with a new lot. If you