42 COTTON TEXTILES IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 



to the Department, it is a trade which, in all the future years, must 

 continue to offer a wider and wider field for the expenditure of enter- 

 prise a field in which there is no local competition and in which prob- 

 ably there never will be any. It is a trade which is not only large now, 

 but which must go on increasing with the growth and development of 

 the country. And in the midst of the monopoly which Great Britain 

 now enjoys, and of the unpromising prospect which is offered to the 

 cotton-millers of the rest of the world, there is at least one circumstance 

 very greatly in our favor, and that is that English cottons are not to be 

 compared with those turned out by the mills of the United States 

 our fabrics commending themselves at once by their superior body and 

 strength, and by their freedom from dirt and sizing. It is on this fact, 

 and on this alone, that we are able at present to build any hopes of the 

 future. Trade, we know, has a tendency, where other things are equal, 

 to keep in its i% old rut," but it can be diverted by furnishing a better 

 article as cheap. Let us proceed in the business on the line of the 

 trade methods which have done so much for British commerce in South 

 America, and the superiority of our cotton goods must eventually com- 

 mand the 1 market of the River Plate. 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 



I regret to have to say that if the sales of American cottons have in- 

 creased here at all during the last ten years, it is not because our Amer- 

 ican mills have done anything themselves to assist the situation. On 

 the contrary they have even neglected to take advantage of opportu- 

 nities when they offered. A few years ago one of the leading commer- 

 cial houses of Buenos Ayres, well posted by many years' experience in 

 all the details of the cottons trade, not only succeeded in successfully 

 introducing American cottons to the notice of its customers but even 

 pushed the trade overland into Bolivia, and, as the market at home 

 was at that time dull and slow, our mills rejoiced in being able to fur- 

 nish all that was required by the increasing demand down here. But 

 what ensued ? Just then our home trade began to revive, and the very 

 same mills, which had previously been so anxious to gain a permanent 

 foothold in the Eiver Plate, coolly n plied to the orders for more cot- 

 tons, that they had at present a market in the United States for all the 

 cottons they could furnish, and that the orders from the Argentine Re- 

 public could not be supplied ! The result was that, disgusted with this 

 method of doing business, the importing house, which had worked so 

 faithfully in the matter, was compelled to drop the American trade as 

 unreliable, and go back again to English cottons. Our American mills 

 must understand that, if they would establish a foreign market for 

 tbeir fabrics, they can not temporarily suspend a trade which they have 

 inaugurated, and then take it up again at their pleasure. The millers 

 of Manchester do things better than that. If they have once caught 

 on to the trade of any country they never let go or give it up. 



