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Show fRADE MISSIONARY GOES TO YESTERN SOUTH AMERICA TO STUDY MARKET CONDITIONS I Another of the United States' new EMkmbassadors of business has come HKfclKto town to meet business men and SlaKonfer with them on t.i" best m :-n . m HfciTh foreign countries. He Is A. L Harrington, commercial attache to Limn. Peru, whose jurisdiction ln-Bcludes ln-Bcludes Ecuador and Bolivia. Like others of the experts assigned by I the Department of Commerce to thl novel work, be hns had extended pfBl fxpc-iirnce in studying market cun- Ef-Ultionsabi.il H a graduate of Yale in the class ' rf'rmi he has spent eight years in the Orient, half of which lime ho LkHil was in the Philippines, where he " learned to speak Spanish and ah-o BLKl neoulred some knowledge of Latin ,p. and customs. Then he spent I tou, rears In the employ of the I standard Oil Company traveling all I . h tho East, from J;ian to I fic Freneh -d Dutch. In the-I the-I Philippines h was paymaster n Constabulary, and also a supply DOur from thG df; j!U "We left own initiative. Of course, the general gen-eral lines of policy and conduct are kiid out frankly, but the manner In Which we are to go about our work is for us to determine, and this Is necessarily so, because conditions In different countries vary, and a man cannot say, himself, Just what he will do until he has arrived and surveyed the ground At the same time, a man asked me the other day what would be the first thing I would do If I landed in Calluo tomorrow, to-morrow, and after thinking a minute, min-ute, I told him I would begin by trying to open up social connections. connec-tions. As a matter of fact, that !s half the secret of building up trade qnnectiohs to try to meet the people you want to sell to, to learn their personal habits, ways and inclinations, in-clinations, in other words, to get to know them well enough to be able to Judge what they w;.nt "Heretofore, I think, the principal princi-pal trouble vrlthvAmerican business men who have tried to establish markets In Latin-America has been that they were not sufficiently anxious anx-ious to sell the South Americans what they wanted. If a thing was cood enough for North America, why, then it was good enough for South America, That seemed to be their reasoning. Of course, the fact Is that a man who buys an article has every right in tho world to act what he wants and not what you want to sell him. The present is a psychological time for cultivating I-in lir.taii' C of Lili n-Ani'3jL countries, and making them realize that we wish to be their triends. that we will regard It as an honor to be able to strengthen our trade relations; with them. "Perhaps a Utile too much c-m-phasls has been laid upon the possibilities pos-sibilities of raining business down there Immediately. The South Americans, like ourselves, have been hit by the disturbed conditions of the world's trade, and even if Ibis were not so, you cannot expect to open up a market for yourself, off-hand, in a few months. That' kind of work, een when It Is done skillfull-., requires several years, to put It moderate!: . Trade relations rela-tions grow gradually ; they don't shoot up overnight. The value of the existing situation to us lies in the fact that we have a fair opening open-ing to make the South Americans like us and believe in us. And if we can make them do that, they will naturally k-c their trade drift our i i V way. "1 am advising the business men whom I meet that the best thing they can do if they contemplate selling-campaign in Latin-America, is to send down salesmen with agreeable personalities, whose immediate im-mediate object shall be. not making sales, but friends. Let such nu n go South and mix with the people; let them study the Latin-Americans, hnd out v. bat they want, what appeals ap-peals to thein. how they are influenced in-fluenced f this is done properly, trade will follow as a natural consequence. con-sequence. I'm speaking from per-Bonal per-Bonal experience when I say his. People are more or less similar all over the world, in this -respect; and I once lived five weeks in the home of a Chinaman In order to acquire his point of view and to make him see certain things as I saw them. Lecauso I went at him as a man who had something to learn, as well as lu teach, I was able to succeed. "I am trying to meet as many men who are interested in the countries coun-tries to which I am accredited as possible, but I have Just returned from the East and I have been very busy. I shall have to leave New York today for a time, and cannot get back until November. When i i ro return, however. I Intend to visit all the firms which I have reason to suppose may be interested in the work 1 shall be able to do for them, one of the things we shall do will u '." prepare reports from time to time on matters of interest to American exporters and Importers, ni,l of course, we will mako special in cstlgations of subjects referred to us by American business firms, through the department. "My office will be at Lima, but I i xpect to travel a great deal, and 1 thall have to spend much time in Lollvia and Ecuador. The assignment assign-ment of these other countries to me Is more or les tc-ntatlvc, and It may be that experience will show that tin- attache at Santlagc in Chill will be better Qualified by trade and geographical conditions to look out for Bolivia. If that is the case I will step aside for him, I suppose. The work promises to be exceptional! exception-al! v interesting and I hae every cuiiiidcme that we shall accomplish something worth while." |