Arizona republican., 1898-12-30

British net increase has only been s1,
 100000.
 , The interview was in part as fol | lows:
 'So you think the American consul' make themselves more useful to theil
 country than the British do to theirs 9
 Yes; thera can be no doubt of i- The United States consul, to begin with, has fewer traditions. That is g I great advantage. He has also, in my
 experience, a far keener eye to indus trial and commercial affairs and bet ter capacity for details, technical an1 otherwise. In, I believe, sixty towns and cities of the British isles there is
 an American consulate. About half of these are in charge of American citi-
 zens, the others being English; but
 these latter ars mostly at the unimpor- tant places. The thirty Americans have taken to the duties of ambassa- dOTs Of commerce with a zeal which cannot, think, be too closely followed by British consuls in foreign countries. : Of course, it is only of late years that
 manufactures of the United States have
 generally laid themselves out for for eign trade. But, like new beginners
 at most things, they have put lot of
 enthusiasm into the work and have
 spared no trouble. This enthusiasm is shared by the consuls, and they taEe
 a pleasure in acquiring information
 likely to be useful, oven though it may
 entail Q good deal of trouble and ex-
 panditure of lot of time Yet the American cOnsuls are not given to the
 writing of long-winded reports, or to explaining at length the principles up- on which American merchants should conduct their export business"
 But, 1 inquired, 'in what way do the United States consuls get better in formation than the British?
 ''I should say they take a great deal more trouble over getting information, and go to work in a different fashion. The American consul, as a rule, is the sort of man to cultivate tha acQuain- tance of business men in the district and of course, we know that the citi- Zens Of the stars and stripes are cham pions at the gentle are of questioning, and their questions are usually very much to the point. If man in a large way of business is willing to open out at all, the American consul will stick to him until he has got all the essen tial facts likely to be useful to the trad CTS supplying the particular description Of goods used. Then, again, when ! 2 gets anything he thinks of importance, he does not wait for a month to include the information in a comparatively lengthy report. He writes out the statement concerning the matter perhaps even the same night as was the case in one instance that came under my notice-he catches the next mail, it is published in Washing ton in two or three weeks, and it is cir culated all over the United States with | ID longer interval from the time the in formation was acquired than would be taken by many of our consuls in pre- pairing the report. I quite admit that | the English reports may be more strict l Iy correct in some respects, which is | only to be expected as the result of ! much greater deliberation, but in thsse | days of telephones and telegraphs, and | steam and scramble, promptitude is al-' most everything, and an ideal consul | should be almost as smart as 8 jour 1alist.
 Then there is this about it. In or fer to supply the sort of information | to merchants which is furnished by | American consuls, it is necessary to