64 PAPER IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 



found in the exertions put forward by our German competitors. 

 The reasons for the foregoing observation are so obvious and have 

 been so often commented upon that it seems wholly unnecessary to 

 repeat them here. 



To insure any measure of success on the part of our manufac- 

 turers, it will be necessary for them to endeavor to find a market 

 for their goods by the employment of capable, straightforward, 

 plain-dealing salesmen, competent to make themselves understood 

 in the language of the country to which they are sent and of con- 

 forming somewhat to the usages and business habits of the people 

 thereof. 



It is also necessary to submit goods of a quality and kind de- 

 manded by the trade and habits of the people in question. Also, it 

 must be borne in mind that inhabitants of these older countries the 

 trade of which we are seemingly now attempting to acquire are very 

 conservative in their ideas, not accustomed as we are to the constant 

 presentation of novelties in design and manufacture, and by no means 

 so appreciative as the mass of our people of improvements in either 

 of the directions referred to. 



In seeking for the trade of a country situated like this, with long- 

 established business and financial connections with their immediate 

 neighbors, we shall naturally be forced to conform to its existing 

 usages as to terms of sale, credit, and payment. To force business 

 houses to pay for goods at time of shipment, on presentation of draft 

 accompanying bill of lading at a New York bank, is not likely, in my 

 judgment, to lead to much success. If our manufacturing interests 

 were properly represented on the Continent as many of them are in 

 England, according to report it would seem to me that it would be 

 as easy for them to conform to existing usages here as for manufac- 

 turers of other nations. 



The interest of the foreign commission house intrusted with the 

 introduction of articles of our manufacture ceases the moment it is 

 able to place on the market articles of similar character and appear- 

 ance, produced in some neighboring country, at a lower price than 

 those of our manufacture. 



There are in Belgium no periodicals whatever containing articles 

 on paper making. Since May, 1897, there is published, however, a 

 monthly Review Graphique Beige in the special interest of printers 

 and lithographers, which has met with a wide success among its 

 special clientele. The paper is published at the printing office of 

 Xavier Havermans, 40 Galerie du Commerce, at Brussels; the annual 

 subscription to this review is, for foreign countries, 6 francs (about 

 $1.16). It contains a large quantity of advertising relative to the 

 paper trade and to the printing business. 



