Los Angeles herald., 1909-09-10
in MODERN CHINA
XXI-The Trade Gate of Hongkong
By Frederic j Haskin

disadvantage to American firms. Add
to this the fact the British and Ger
man firms here have American offices
which look not only to the sale of Chi
nese goods in the United States, but
also keep an eye peeled upon prices
and products in America with a view
to heading off competition While the
British and German firms are keeping
tab upon American affairs the large
Hongkong banks, their directorates
composed of the heads of leading Brit
ish and German commercial houses,
force any American seeking their SER
vices to lay the details of his enter
prise before them. In other words, he
is compelled to hand his business se-
crets over to his business rivals. Natur-
ally an American turns to his one bank.
but the other half dozen are close
corporations for the promotion of Brit
ish and German trade.
About $4,000 vessels of more than
sixty tons enter Hongkong harbor
each year. More than half of these
are Chinese junks, corresponding to the
schooners that carry coastwise COM
merce in American waters. British
steamers number more than 5000, Ger
man nearly 1000, Japanese and French
about 500 each, Chinese between 300 and
400. Norway sends about 300 vessels
to Hongkong and Portugal about 200.
America sends fewer than fifty. There
are hundred or more export and i'm
port houses in Hongkong. Seventy
five are divided equally between Eng
lish, German and Dutch. Portuguese,
Spanish, Parsees, Italians and others
fill UP the rest of the list. The United
States boasts two.
There Is no prospect for a large
FFasN
China while American manufacturers
are represented in Hongkong by
agents whose interest lies in promoting
the sale of the products of our rivals
in trade. There is always inattention
at one end of the line or the other
when an order Is placed with a firm
thus represented. If. by any chance,
there is genuine activity here the lack
of 1t at home, where no great amount
of consideration is given to an agency
remotely situated and discouraging in
the dimensions of the business done,
makes the deal failure and a bad
advertisement. There is no one here
to investigate the market to find and
to develop opportunities where the
other nations are finding and develop
ing them. There exists, in the minds
of American manufacturers who have
not been upon the ground, the err
roneous idea that the purchasers in
China are not particular IS to what
they buy. The man on the ground
knows that while they may be con-
verted to the theory that dollar UNI
brella made of cloth that leaks is su-
perior to a dozen ten-cent umbrellas
that do keep out the rain, the Chinese
insist upon getting Just what they or
der. And the Briton and German stay
with the market to insist that they
alone may be depended upon to "de-
liver the goods" according 1. contract.
Unfortunately for American interests.
when an order placed with an agent
who does not particularly care whether
he sells American goods, or filled by
an employe who is under the impress
sion that anything will do for China,
full advantage of the mistake is taken.
The report that Americans are unre-
liable Is vigorously circulated where
there are few Americans here to
deny it.
A story current among the travelling
of European houses is
that a Chinese merchant placed with
the agent of an American match fac
tory an order for a large quantity of
in boxes of five hundred. When
the matches arrived the merchant
opened a box and counted the number
of matches 1t contained. There were
495. The Sagac1OuS ChlneSe suspended
business while he had his clerks open
each box and count the contents. Some
of the boxes contained more than 500
matches, and some OF them less than
that number. The grand total, figured
out in Chinese characters that covered
many sheets of paper and employed
the time Of several accountants, was a
few hundred matches less than the
number that should have been delivered
in fulfillment of a promise to send out
a certain number of gross of boxes.
The results compensated the Chinese
for the expense Of the in
vestigation. He has since been Wig
orous muck raker, who advises every
one not to patronize the agents of
American firms.
China is an enormous mine OF pur-
chasing power out of which the nations
of the west will dig more gold within
the next century than has ever come
out of shafts driven into the earth or
the shifting sands of gold-beartng
streams washed by placer miners.
Railroad development, now embryonic
but alive, will open markets now mac
cessible and the increase from the pres
ent volume of trade will be by leaps
and bounds. The question asked by
friends of America in the east is
whether Americans are going to
awaken with the commercial awaken
ing' of China.
Tomorrow-The Manchurian Question
I: Playing for Imperial Stakes.