The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-10-29
HUSTLERS
FOR TRADE
What Young Drummers
Have Done In
Orient.

The Sunday Call tells the following
story about a couple of enterprising
young travelling statesmen well known
in Honolulu:
1t is just about time that America
was sitting up and taking notice. Or
dinarilv no one could accuse her of be-
ing far behind the times, but when it
comes to trading with the Orient, she
makes her bow, takes back seat and
permits even the baby nations of the
world to take the enormous trade which
by right should be hers.
It seems strange when one stops to
think of it that the United States fig
ures so insignificantly IN this particular
line of business. Every year of the
world the Orient buys produce thai
amounts to fully $1,000, 100000. but by
far the greatest portion of this sum
goes to England, Germany and France.
In fact, anywhere but where it shouts
go and the fault lies entirely with the
American manufacturer and his agents
Instead of waking up and investigating
the cause of lack of commerce. he calm
ly and serenely goes on his way SELL
ing to other markets whose entire trade
would not be a patching to that OF ia
pan, China, India and Siam once it
was opened up and got into first
class running order.
Perhaps America does not realize
what monopoly of Eastern commerce
would mean. Evidently she has not
figured on the millions of dollars that
would pass from the Orient to the Oc-
cident; or on the position that she
would gain as, the chief commercial ma
ton of the world. Evidently not, or
she would be over there in a flash
prying about and making it her CHER
business in life to investigate the pos
sibilities and to negotiate right then
and there to supply a certain amount
of goods-and goods, by the way, that
she never even so much as dreameu
were used in that part of the globe.
The rivalry between foreign and home
has always been OF the
keenest, but IN this particular case, one
is lying low and making hay while the
sun shines, while the other is steadily
increasing business at home and push
ing vigorously ahead on the European
continent
Cosmopolitan San Francisco's water
front is being enlarged and strength
ened every day and the trade that
comes to her port is immense AMI val
liable, but it is not what one might
easily think it. Every Oriental vessel
that docks carries a human cargo o.
foreigners all clamoring and eager to
be landed on American soil and 70 take
up their residence in this city, or Little
China, as it has been dubbed by amaz-
ed visitors.
That the Fasteners are willing and
ready to do business with us has been
recently demonstrated in a very
forcible and convincing manner
Two years ago H. J. Rosen-
crantz and il. Keegan, per-
haps better known as THE Irishman
and the Jew sailed away to capture
the East all hands down. They figured
to do it principally by means of reaoy
Irish wit, shrewd Jewish calculation
and jolly American companionshfp-a
combination difficult to beat 1t is
true there We're eight trunks packed
snugly with samples in the hold of the
ship. but there was precious little
money to jingle in their pockets, and
samples are not filing when the
stomach is empty and crying Justify
for satisfaction.
Honolulu was their first victim, and
SO well did they convince the mer-
chants that they wanted precisely
what those sample trunks contained
that week saw them bag and bag
gage on their way to China with
contented smile and cheerful click
of silver and gold. For nine months
they wrestled with the willy Chinese
as the advance agents of civilization
and prosperity, and then came home
to open up larger deals with mer-
chants, so that they would be enabled
to supply the trade with anything
from an elephants nursing bottle to
a dozen locomotives for the Trans
Siberian Railway.
Round the United States they went.