The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1909-07-26
TIE ROAD 10 MANDALAY
-RANGoON, THE BOOM CITY.
BY Frederic J. Haskin.

Rangoou. Burma.-In land of gilded
{ pdgOQas, where the people native to the
SOIL are Buddhists, who think more Of
acquiring merit than riches. RangOOn.
with its remarkable record for recent
growth and its great future as an Asian
metropolis, is as anachrOnistic in appear
/ ance as an English made coat upon a
bufInan sun wearing flaming silk skirt
adorned with embroidered peacocks. More
than any other city east Of Suez il sug-
gests a rapidly blOssOming boom town of
Inc American west. While the travelling
| steam crane has not Yet entirely sup
planted the elephant Diling teak logs in
the saw mill yards. and the punctuality
Of the west is not yet a feature Of bust
ness negotiations fin the great commercial
/ houses. RangOOn is much buster looking
than any other city in the Indian empire
I The harbor filled with ships from all
quarters of the globe. loading and I'M
loading cargO3S, presents "A spectacle nov
el TO the eye of everyone who has thought
Of the first city in the former dominiOns
of King Thebaw as being dull
( A reflection of the RangOcn spirit is
found IN the makeup of the leading morn
ing newspaper, printed, of course. in Eng
lish. This journal commonly publishes
100 columns of advertising upon week
days The reliance Of RangOon mer-
chants upon the power of printers ink as
promoter of prosperity may be judged
from the fact that the jewelry stores
publish half page and sometimes fun
Iage display advertisements illustrated
with pictures of articles of jewelry.
The value Of the private sea borne
trade of RangoOn is about S00.000o00, and
Loo steamers enter and clear the port
each year. Much less than one-third of
the 100000 population is Burmese. and
from the number of Indians seen In the
streets the appearance Of the business
section is quite similar to Calcutta. on the
other side Of the Bay of Bengal Rice,
lumber and oil constitute the principal
articles of export from Burma, and
4 4 rio lis
saw mills and oil works. through which
these products are handled. The cOun-
try imports finished products of many
kinds, and these are at present handled
chiefly through large British and Ger
man firms which maintain trading houses
i'm RangOOu and the other leading cities.
The United States is as yet but little
represented I'm RangOOn commerce, but
the field, i'm the opinion of everyone VINO
has investigated conditions. lies open to
such American establishments will en-
ter upon its development with sufficient
vigor. There are two WAYS of building
up trade in the Orient. The British way
is to get on the ground first in the wake
of a conquest where the territory is Brit
Sh, and make the natives buy what Eng
lish manufactures turn out. The German
method is to get upon the ground, usu-
ally little later. find out what the ma 20
tiVes want manufacture IT to meet the
demand, and overcome the British by eE-
ira effort I'm the direction Of pleasing the
dealing Both British and German meth
DDS entail the establishment of trading
houses that carry large stocks of goods
The theory is of piece with the mill
tary maxim that an invasion is likely TO
fail when the vanguard Is too far from
the base.
The American method so far. has been
to send travelling representatives into the
Orient with large stores Of samples. It
has not prospered because of the neCes-
zarily great delay in filling orders. A
drummer from a large American house
recently arrived in RangOOn with twenty
eight trunks full of samples \ mail or
der requires a month or more for trans
mission; another delay is caused by the
shipment of the article ordered. and if it
is found satisfactory, the something
q little different which may be found ln
stock in a local trading house usually
gets the second order. II American man
ufacturers would establish trading houses
as bases of supply they might claim
fair share Of the trade in Burma.
In expectation of its attainment OF
larger growth, RangOOn has been laid out.
i'm the European quarter, upon the liberal
lines that characterize the greater In
dian seaports, Bombay and Calcutta, but
il is without the vast and lonely spaces
of Madras Road building. fetch OF
the British in all of their foreign posses
boulevaTds. and her parks are the most
beautiful in the Indian empire One of
them includes a lake Of sufficient area 10
afford good sport for boat club Boosting
a fleet Of sloOps and knOckabOuts as well
as a flOtilla Of rowbOats and canoes.
The weather in RansOon varies from
warmth somewhat trying to the cOnsti-
tuition to heat altogether trying TO the
disposition. In all seasons il is essential
" tropical Europeans who are perma-