Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-03-21

| course of seven or eight months I met
| half dozen young fellows who had beer
| sent out from London to travel around arc
| familiarize themselves with the countries
and with the business which some day, pre-
| sumably, would pass to their control. They
l were intelligent and shrewd. and were max
| ing the most of their observations. How
| ever, there was a much larger class OF
| they called exile. and were leading pretty
fast pace as a consolation. Naturally the
| business in their charge was not prosper
| ing
| places for the loss of British trade prestige
was the set notions of E,nglishYnen about
their comfort and their ways of doing busi~
| ness. They have the notion which obtains
| in the United States that the beggars
ought to take whatever is sent them. in
stead of what they (the beggars) think they
want.
When the Englishman calls the natives
of another country beggars. he doesn't
mean it extensively, but simply in the sense
that they were not born to the privilege
of being Anglo-Saxons. and ought to
recognize the Saxon superiority in supply
ing their own wants. This idea did hold
for something like three-qUarters of cen
fury, and it still holds, to the extent of
giving the united kingdom a very large and
profitable Spanish-American trade. Yet it
began to yield when the Germans and also
the Italians and French commenced to
supply the natives with what they though ut
pean manufacturers thought they ought to
want
1t is impossible not to sympathize with
the EngliShman'S determination to have his
comfort abroad as well as at home But
here, too, the result has been to lose trade.
The Germans the French. the Italians,
and always the Spaniards, sacrifice comfort
for business. and they get more than
their share of the latter in consequence.
English companies and corporations are
very liberal to their employees in foreign
countries. The general rule in South Amer
lea is that every five years the employe
shall have four months vacation, with his
expenses paid to and from home, and full
salary during the vacation. Higher officials
are even better treated. In many places the
English corporations provide clubs, and al
most every convenience for recreation that
can be imagined. In Montevideo where
foot ball was the chief amusement of the
club, surgeon was provided. In BuenoS
Ayres the English railway offices close
every Saturday the year round at noon, and
their clerks have the benefit of the full half
holiday.
/ Italian Commercial Travellers
The Italians in South America are little
heard of, yet they are pretty strong in
trade, and met many commercial travellers
of that nationality. Like the Germans, they
are well equipped with languages 1t Is
pretty well understood that in Buenos
lion of Italians, and this itself insures a
large trade to Italy. There is also a Little
Italy in Lima and Big Italy in Valparaiso,
where some of the leading commercial
houses are OF that nationality The Italian
drummer adapts himself to circumstances
but while he will tell you he cant COM
pam OF business, he does complain of the
mind " ~
one OF these Italians whom met was so
intensely prejudiced against Chile that
thoaght he must have had some trouble
Win the government or the people This
was not SO. He had very good business
IN thlt country. but he had got Indigestion
In one of the Santiago hotels and this had
mace nam so violently anti-Chilean in
everything that this topic was like a hot
coai. He was very anxious about my own
internal welfare, and was at pains to sup
ply me with a list of what he called the
lease worst hotels. There are a number of
retlfed Italian sea captains keeping hotels
along the Pacific coast Most of them
ought to be hung as pirates for they keen
worse hotels than the natives.
french commercial travellers and French
ilrms are much more common in Central
and South America than is known. The
Tummers, as a rule, are Alsatians, though
they refuse to own allegiance to the kaiser.
and the houses which they represent are To-
Gated at Paris or the big commercial cities
of France. They supply the finer line of
goods. and do it very well. AS the wealthy
classes in all the Latin countries are liberal
buyers the French trade is profitable one.
Alsatian or French Drummers.
These Alsatian or French drummers are
like all their fellows from Europe in know
ing English. Three of them were coming
up the coast from Valparaiso to Panama
and wanted to find fourth voyager to fill
in at a little table. They found Canadian
who had lived on the Pacific coast. At first
he objected that he didn't speak French.
Why we all speak English. said one of
the party, and then he went on to explain
that in Paris they use the term full hand
or full house" just as in the United States
He and his companions varied the monot-
on5 of the voyage by several popular top
ical songs. one of which was about girl
from London who got on the wrong train.
l asked the liveliest of them how they came
to learn English. He replied, How would
You expect us to sell our goods against
English goods if we didn't know the Ian
gCage? Then he told me that all of them
represented lines of French manufactures
which We're sold in England and the United
States in competition with home goods.
Coming up from Central America to Mex
leo a young Frenchman somewhat diff
IDENTIFY asked me if | would mind our speak
ing in English. We had been varying from
Spanish TO French and French to Spanish
because l did not know that ne unders rod
the American language. He explained that
he was just returning to France from Maui
ritius and Madagascar via Venezuela and
Central America and he hadn't had much
time to practice English and was afraid he
was forgetting il. But within an hour he
was speaking very good English In Iced.
He was an Alsatian. and he had learned the
language because in travelling over the
world he found that English was neces-
sary for commercial purposes.
Yet 1T would be wrong to infer that be-
cause European commercial travellers IN
Spanish and other countries all know Eng
lish, the English or American drummer can
get business by depending on his own lam
guage. He can't at all, but 20 fully explain
this would take space to describe customs
and commercial wants which Is lacking
here. shall try to do so in another article
about the Yankee drummer IN Latin Amer
lean countries.
CHARLES NJ PEPPER.
MEMORIAL TO HANNA.