i6 
LAND & WATER 
August 3, 1916 
in further explanation, the Englishman called over a 
powerful peon, Avhom he had brought along with him, 
and ordered him to swing with all his strength with a 
ten-pound sledge hammer upon the share of one of the 
British ploughs. The husky Basque spat upon his 
hands, hunched his muscular shoulders, swung the heavy 
hammer in a wide circle, and brought it down on the 
ploughshare. A note as clear as that of a bell rang out 
and the plough went bounding across the floor, but, save 
for the patch of red paint that fused and came off upon 
the hammer's nose, the share was unmarked. 
When the operation was repeated upon one of the 
German implements, the first share was completely 
shattered, the pieces being scattered about the floor like 
so much broken crockery. Suggesting that possibly 
the faultiness of this plough had been an accident of 
construction, perhaps of over-tempering, the dealer 
told the peon to swing upon the second sample. 
This blow demonstrated that the German implements 
were not even consistent in their defectiveness, for the 
second share doubled up under the impact and folded 
lovingly in around the hammer like a flower going to 
sleep at set of sun. 
The German salesman arrived just in time to gather 
np his wreckage, and he was so enraged that he threatened 
the dealer with a suit to recover the value of his damaged 
samples, a typically Teutonic piece of diplomacy. I 
learned afterwards that a largo order on his house was 
countermanded by cable, and that he did have to go to 
law to collect a considerable amount actually due to him 
from the indignant Argentino for ploughs which he 
had already sold. The Englishman closed a substantial 
order. The next day, resolving to take the bull by the 
horns, he set out with a sledge hammer to make the 
round of the dealers, only to learn to his mingled chagrin 
and satisfaction, that the panic-stricken Teuton had 
been ahead of him and, on one pretext or another, had 
removed his ploughs from the path of destruction. The 
sale of cheap German agricultural machinery languished 
on the Rio Plate for several years after that. 
An Indian Experience 
Another instance of the way in which the German 
used the imitation of a standard article of established 
reputation to push his own trade came to my personal 
attention during a recent tour of the Orient, in this case 
America being the victim. For a number of years the 
United States has dominated the world's market in 
high-grade typewriters — machines costing twenty pounds 
and upwards — and their position in this line was so 
strong that Germany never made a serious attempt to 
challenge it. But in lighter and lower-priced tj'pe- 
writers, in which the States had also been building up a 
considerable foreign trade, the Teutons, evidently 
figuring that there was some business to be gained, went 
about it in characteristic fashion. 
On the Oriental tour in question, principally on account 
of its portabihty, I had taken with me a little American- 
made aluminium folding typewriter of very ingenious 
construction. Despite its lightness, the little machine 
stood up amazingly under hard and persistent service. 
One day the pack-mule that was carrying it through the 
mountains near the Chino-Burmese frontier went over 
the edge of a storm-washed trail and landed at the bottom 
of a ravine with the load beneath it. I took the pieces 
of this typewriter back with me to Rangoon, where 
they wanted to charge me more for the necessary repairs 
and replacements than the machine had cost in the first 
place. One of the dealers there, however — an oily Bengali 
— showed me a machine that he had just received from 
Germany, which, except that its frame was of some 
heavy pressed metal instead of aluminium, was an almost 
exact replica of the one I had been carrying. I bought 
it for 100 rupees, which, allowing for duty and freight, 
was but little more than a half of the fifty dollars that 
the other machine was sold for in America. 
Except that it was noisier than my little American 
machine, the new typewriter worked very satisfactorily 
for about two weeks. Then cumulative troubles set iii, 
and at the end of three months the mechanical parts 
. were so worn and sprung that a number of the type bars 
would not carry up to the roller, to say nothing of the 
lack of :ilignment of the others. The thing was as flimsy 
as a German toy, as poorly made as it was cheap, and 
I was glad to learn from the EngHsh dealer in Bombay, 
who put my old machine in working order again for a 
very reasonable charge, that it was already so thoroughly 
discredited that it was being handled only in the native 
bazaars, and with decreasing success even there. 
Specious Imitations 
I have in mind many other examples of the German 
practice of turning out an article that is faultless in 
finish but most unreliable in service. Nearly every one 
of these is an obvious imitation of some British or 
American article that has already gained a world-wide 
reputation on its merits. A certain make of American 
sewing machine is almost in a class by itself on the score 
of .value given for a moderate price, but the bazaars of 
Malaysia, Turkey, India and I^'orth Africa were flooded 
a few years ago with a beautifully inlaid and varnished 
German hand machine which, as it sold for 20 per 
cent, less than the American article of which it was a 
specious imitation, had things a good deal its own way 
until its cheap materials, giving way or wearing out 
quickly in use, revealed it in its true colours. 
German cameras, made in all the popular designs of 
the best known English and American makes, were thrown 
upon the market in the three years previous to the out- 
break of the war, and, being low-priced and well finished, 
had a large sale in places where the public were slow in 
discovering that they " peeled " and warped on exposure 
to heat and moisture. I write feelingly again, for I was 
forced to buy one of these German cameras in Batavia 
after my own had been lost by a cooHe. 
The cheap imitation was not the only way in which the 
German used the low price. One of his favourite ex- 
pedients, especially in out-of-the-way places, was to 
win new customers by manipulating the price of some 
British, French or American article of which he had been 
able to secure the exclusive agency for that district. 
America was the worst sufferer from this practice, for 
the reason that so great a part of her foreign trade has 
always been handled through German agents, but Britain 
also came in for a good share of trouble. Sheffield cut- 
lery — the standard of excellence throughout the world 
for many years — was one of the principal objects of attack, 
the aim, of course, being to make way for Solingen. 
Here was the waj' a German trader of Manaos proceeded 
to " run off the market " a British razor which had 
attained to considerable popularity all through tropical 
South America. Securing by hook or by crook the agency 
of the English article, he promptly started in to attract 
new customers by offering it^— at a temporary loss to him- 
self, of course' — at a price 30 per cent, lower than it 
had ever been sold in this region before. Selling out 
his stock at the end of a month, he then began offering 
his customers a German razor that was " just as good " 
at the same price he had been selHng the English one, 
and when any one insisted on having the British article, 
he was told that the price, even when he had it in stock 
again, would be advanced to the figure at which it had 
first been sold, and that it might even go higher. 
The Germans did this sort of thing, as I have heard 
them admit, by way of advertisement, cannily figuring 
that it was cheaper to sell at a loss for a while to attract 
customers than to endeavour to lure the latter by posters 
and newspaper space. The thing was to get the trade. 
" But what is the use of your building up business 
with a lot of this tin cutlery and similar articles which I 
have found scattered all tlirough the bazaars of the East ?" 
I once asked a German salesman who shared the com- 
partment with me on the train from Delhi to Lahore. 
" It's easy to get trade with such stuff, but surely you 
can't expect to hold it." 
" While I cannot admit that the goods you refer to 
are of poor quality," was the reply, " I think you will 
find we are justified in selling them at very low prices in 
order to introduce them. Once we get the foothold — 
and you see how fast we are doing that, even in India — 
it wiil be just as easy to increase the quality as it will be 
to increase the price." 
To " get the trade " was plainly the German watchword 
in the first mad rush of their great commercial campaign. 
How they intended to hold it had not yet become fully 
apparent at the time war came, and as things look now, 
the demonstration is likely to be indefinitely deferred. 
