The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-11-21

ority. There is nothing that we resent so quickly as an assumption of superiority or evidence of condeScenson in foreigners. there is nothing that the South Amer jeans resent so quickly. The South Amer. jeans are our superiors in some respects; we are their superiors in other respects. We should show to them what is best in us and see what is best in them. Every agent of an American producer or mer- chant should be instructed that courtesy, politeness, kindly consideration are es- sential ro osuisites for success in the South Amer ican trade.
 Promote Investment of Capital.
 :" The investment of American capital in South America under the direction of American experts should be promoted not merely upon simple investment grounds, but as a means of creating and enlarglng trade. For simple investment purposes the opportunities are innumerable. Good business judgment and good business management will be necessary there, Of course, as they are necessary here, but given these, 1 believe that there is vast number of enterprises awaiting capital in the more advanced countries of South America. capable of yielding great profits, and in which the property and the profits will be as safe in the United States or Canada. A good many such enterprises are already begun. l have found grac- uate of the Massachusetts Institute ot Technology a graduate of the Columbia School on Mines and d graduate of Col onel Roosevelts Rough Riders smelting copper close under the snow line of the Andes; I have ridden in an American car upon an American electric road built by a New York engineer, in the heart of the coffee region of Brazil, and l have seen the waters of that river, along which Pl- zarro established his lines of communlca- ton in the conquest of Peru, harnessed to American machinery to make light and power for the city of Lima. Every such point Is the nucleus of American trade the source of orders for Amercan goods
 1T It is absolutely essential that the means of communication between the two countries should be improved and in creased.
 This underlies all other considerations, and 1t applies both to the mail, the pas senger and the freight services. Between all the principal South American ports and England, Germany. France, Spain Italy, line of swift and commodious steam CTS ply regularly. There are five subse- dized first-class mail and passenger lines between Buenos Ayres and Europe: there Is no line between Buenos Ayres and the l United States. Within the past two years 1 the German the English and the Italian l lines have been replacing their old steam i CTS with new and swifter steamers or 1 modern construction, accommodation and
 capacity.
 Decline of Merchant Marine.
 This woeful deficiency in the means to l carry on and enlarge our South Ameri- l can trade is but a part of the general l decline and feebleness of the American l merchant marine, which has reduced us 1 from carrying over 90 per cent Of our ex- | port trade in our own ships to the car riage of per cent of that trade In our
 own ships and dependence upon foreign 1 shin owners for the carriage of 91 per i cent. The true remedy and the only rem
 edy is the establishment of American lines
 of steamships between the United States and the great ports of South America ade-
 quate to fender fully as good service as | is now afforded by the European lines De- ] tween those ports and Europe.
 l why then have we retired from thls