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The National Geographic Magazine 



the South American, and is thus able to 

 estabHsh that kindly and agreeable per- 

 sonal relation which is so potent in lead- 

 ing to business relations. 



3. The American producer should ar- 

 range to conform his credit system to that 

 prevailing in the country where he wishes 

 to sell goods. There is no more money 

 lost upon commercial credits in South 

 America than there is in North America ; 

 but business men there have their own 

 ways of doing business ; they have to 

 adapt the credits they receive to the 

 credits they give. It is often inconve- 

 nient, disagreeable, and sometimes impos- 

 sible for them to conform to our ways, 

 and the requirement that they should do 

 so is a serious obstacle to trade. 



To understand credits it is, of course, 

 necessary to know something about the 

 character, trustworthiness, and commer- 

 cial standing of the purchaser, and the 

 American producer or merchant who 

 would sell goods in South America must 

 have some means of knowledge upon this 

 subject. This leads naturally to the next 

 observation I have to make. 



4. The establishment of banks should 

 be brought about. The Americans 

 already engaged in South American trade 

 could well afford to subscribe the capital 

 and establish an American bank in each 

 of the principal cities of South America. 

 This is, first because nothing but very 

 bad management could prevent such a 

 bank from making money ; capital is 

 much needed in those cities, and six, 

 eight and ten per cent can be obtained for 

 money upon just as safe security as can 

 be had in Kansas City, St Louis, or New 

 York. It is also because the American 

 bank would furnish a source of informa- 

 tion as to the standing of the South 

 American purchasers to whom credit may 

 be extended, and because American banks 

 would relieve American business in 

 South America from the disadvantage 

 which now exists of making all its finan- 

 cial transactions through Europe instead 

 of directly with the United States. It is 

 unfortunately true that among hundreds 

 of thousands of possible customers the 



United States now stands in a position 

 of assumed financial and business inferi- 

 ority to the countries through whose 

 banking houses all its business has to be 

 done. 



5. The American merchant should 

 himself acquire, if he has not already 

 done so, and should, impress upon all his 

 agents, that respect for the South Ameri- 

 can to which he is justly entitled and 

 which is the essential requisite to respect 

 from the South American. We are dif- 

 ferent in many ways as to character and 

 methods. In dealing with all foreign 

 people it is important to avoid the nar- 

 row and uninstructed prejudice which 

 assumes that difference from ourselves 

 denotes inferiority. There is nothing 

 that we resent so quickly as an assump- 

 tion of superiority or evidence of conde- 

 scension in foreigners ; there is nothing 

 that the South Americans resent so 

 quickly. The South Americans are our 

 superiors in some respects ; we are their 

 superiors in other respects. We should 

 show to them what is best in us and see 

 what is best in them. Every agent of an 

 American producer or merchant should 

 be instructed that courtesy, politeness, 

 kindly consideration are essential requi- 

 sites for success in the South American 

 trade. 



6. The investment of American capital 

 in South America under the direction of 

 American experts should be promoted, 

 not merely upon simple investment 

 grounds, but as a means of creating and 

 enlarging trade. For simple investment 

 purposes the opportunities are innumer- 

 able. Good business judgment and good 

 business management will be necessary 

 there, of course, as they are necessary 

 here ; but given these, I believe that there 

 is a vast number of enterprises awaiting 

 capital in the more advanced countries of 

 South America, capable of yielding great 

 profits, and in which the property and the 

 profits will be as safe as in the United 

 States or Canada. 



A good many such enterprises are 

 already begun. I have found a graduate 

 of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 



