The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-01-11

 one had eveh seen a buggy like mine. and | the carriage dealers everywhere gave me | small orders. I could drive about forty miles day, stopping at a big town al most every night. had a folding bicycle and would now and then rest my horse and get orders for 1t.
 ''The trip as a whole banned out well, but when went over the same ground six months later I found that the men who had ordered my carriages were not trying to sell them. as they did not want American competition. The result was that established agencies myself, and from that time to this have had a good | trade.
 What class of Belgians buy American carriages?' asked.
 | "only the rich. They are too expensive for the poor" was the reply, but the nobility are glad to get them. Two of my earliest customers were the Vicomte dc Buisseret and the Baron de Chambres. well known over Europe as the owners of fine racing horses"
 What did you do with your American trotter7''
 T sold him. His knees got sprung by rough roads and took s10o for him. The purchaser entered him for the races in different parts of Belgium. and made $l, 800 out of him in one year."
 Our Gas Stoves and Swedish Imita- | tions.
 walked with MT. de Cleru through his big store on the Boulevard Anspach, not I far from the Bourse. 1t has every sort Of American notion-American inks. eras- CTS, pens, files. scales, and all sorts of kncknacks. I was especially interested in e gas radiator which Mir. de Clerq tells me he was the first to introduce into Flu rope. Said he;
 '"The Beligans live in flats, which are seldom heated They were glad to get the 1, radiators. and at the start I sold thous- ands of them at 8 apiece. This gave me a big proft, but the Germans and Bell | gians are now making cheap limitations. and the Swedes are sending in e copy | which will drive the American radiator out of the market, and I will have to | make my money out of something else.
 "This has been the case with nearly every one of my American importations. and have come to expect 1t take up | an American novelty and work it for five 1 years, knowing that at the end of that time the natives will copy 1t and under sell me. Then I drop 1t and take up something else.
 | "Just now," MT. de Clerq went on, 'T have knife sharpener. little wheel af- i fair which I can sell by the thousands.
 
 terms and prices. so that can order from 10000 to 50000, as I want them l must have the goods here in order to do business. These people won't walt, and | they won't buy from catalogues. They must see the goods themselves. If l tell customer 1t will take six weeks to sup ply him he goes somewhere else"
 How Our Furniture Goes to Europe. I am especially interested in the way American furniture is handled on the continent. Mir. de ClerQ imports more of our office desks, unit book cases, files and chairs than any other man in North ern Europe. We went together over his warehouses. He has two great buildings packed with our furniture, and nc sells something like .2000 desks every year. l Much of his furniture Is from Cincinnati, and other stuff comes from Grand Rapids.
 MT. de Clerq says the Europeans can- not compete with us as to office furniture. Labor is low, but it is not 70 cheap as l American machinery. As 1t is now, the desks and chairs come here in rectangu- lar boxes in pieces knocked down. They are not smoothed nor vanished. The finishing Is all done by Belgian cabinet makers as good as our best men in the States, who will work for from 30 cents to $1 a day. The chairs are sent in such a way that a dozen dining chairs come l in a box a foot thick and four feet square, while a roll-top desk takes but little more space. In this way the freight is low. The tariff on rough goods is also less than that on the finished articles. An American Warehouse.
 Mir. de ClerQ says that we ought to have an American warehouse in Brus- sels where our exporters could keep sup plies of American goods on hand and sell on call. Said he;
 | "If a half dozen of our big firms would put in, say, $1O.O00 year each and dis play their goods in such a warehouse near the Bourse, they could build up an enormous trade. The Bourse, or Stock Exchange, is the business center of Bell gium. Every Wednesday the merchants and manufacturers from ell parts of the country meet there to buy and sell and talk oyer trade, and they could be easily taken into the warehouse.
 Not only that" continued MT. dc Clerq, but such a warehouse would build up our trade in all parts of northern and central Europe. This 4s the natural headquarters for the sale of our goods to that territory. It is central and you can reach the different parts of Europe more quickly from 1t than any other great point. The taxes are light and the territory Is neutral. The Germans don't l the French with the Germans, but either will trade with a Belgian or q man who lives here. For this reason prafer Brus- | ssls to PaTis."
 The First Continental Invader.
 Leaving MT. de ClerQ called upon Mir. George w. Silcox, the vice-president of the Belgian Anglo-American Chamber of Commerce. MT. Silcox does an enormous business in importing American goods and selling them to all parts of Europe. He was about the first if not the very first to found an American house on the continent, and he might be called our first continental invader. He came to Europe as secretary of the Vienna Hxpo- sitfon of 1873, and in the year following | represented American interests at an az ricultural exposition in Bremen. Said he:
 At that time manufacturing Germany was in the first throes Of it's birth. The Franco-Prussian war had closed, and the empire was at It's beginning. There were no factories The German peasants were | blowing with wooden plowss ghod with iron by country blacksmiths, their grain was failed out and they knew nothing of modern agricultural machinery. The Bremen Exposition opened their eyes, and they gave such orders for our farm tools that about twenty American firms were established in Bremen. I represented one of them, and the only one which has last ed to this day. did business here for some time, but when Germany esta Dds