The Hawaiian gazette., 1900-02-06
COMMERCIAL MUSEUMS.

me great NWfAfTF III hhAAhNNN ~
trade with foreign countries which
stands to the credit Of the Commercial
museum Of Philadelphia has inspired
the merchants Of San Francisco to
propose an institution OF the same
kind. That they will go on and get
1t may be inferred from the quality OF
the men who have the matter in
charge and from the steps already Ia
ken. II is as certain as anything in
the future can be that the museum VIII
come and that, when ii does, Paclhc
ocean trade will receive an amount OF
studious attention that it has rarely
had in the past and be developed by
great combinations of capital rather
than by the limited and limitable force
of individual enterprise.
The intent of a commercial museum
is to give American merchants the
chance which they will not take by
travel and the planting of branch
houses abroad to learn the precise
wants of foreign communities through
object lessons of what such communi-
ties use and buy in rival markets.
There are more merchants in the
United States than one might think
who belong in the category of the man
whom the apochryphal tale-sent a
shipload of warming pans to the South
Seas. Every volume of Consular re-
ports contains protests about the kind
of goods that are packed by American
merchants to be sold in distant mar
kets. In answering an inquiry why so
much of the trade of Argentina is in
the hands of Germans, the United
States Consul at Buenos Ayres' wrote
that Boston and New York exporters
who had tried to supply Argentina
merchants with printstuffs had con-
suited the taste of Boston rather than
that of the Latin-American market
they had sought to enter. The print
stuffs were fine in quality and were
durable-but they had no scarlet edges
They were not made in that bravery of
color the Argentine women loved. The
Germans, on the other hand, had sent
no goods to the market until they had
studied the trade on the ground, and
then they sent the gorgeous fabrics
which were in demand and of course
captured the trade in prints. When
about TO angle, one should not cut bait
according to his own taste, but the
taste of the fish. That was the way
with these German merchants; but
unfortunately the American merchants
had long pursued the opposite policy.
study trade conditions and. though
their foreign trade in some lines has
expanded vastly in spite of them, they
yet have the modification of seeing
the bulk of the jobbing of Central and
South America, their own natural
markets, remain in alien hands. OF
the trade of Australia they have had
until recently but slight conception.
On these accounts they perhaps deserve
or have deserved the characterization
of Dr. Vosberg-R ikow, director of the
association of German business men,
and ingenuity we need not greatly fear
the Americans. Their training is too
Incomplete and one-sided to render
them successful competitors in the
long rum"
The commercial museums, however,
mark new departure. If the Ameri-
can merchants as class cannot see the
advantage of sending spies into far
countries, they are at length willing to
provide museums in which our intelli-
gent Consuls and such business men
as have adopted the German methods,
may deposit specimens of the wares
and products in demand. A visitor to
the Argentine section of the Philadel-
phia museum can see at glance what
the Argentlnas buy and what they pay
for it. II he can make something as
acceptable for less money, or some
thing more acceptable for the same
money, why there and then he gets an
incentive which, II followed up, may
put him in possession Of a rich trade.
The San Francisco museum will nat
urally apply itself mainly to the
trade of the countries bordering on
the Pacific ocean. Here is field fit
for the widest enterprise. The west
coasts of Mexico, Central and South
America, all of Australia. Micronesia,
Polynesia, Siam, China, Japan and ST.
IBERIA figure in that enormous circuit.
By collecting from each the fabricated
articles In use, displaying them 10 all
merchants and manufacturers, the bus
mess men of the Pacific Coast will soon
cease to be one.sided. They will know