The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-09-10
Special Agent of Passenger Department Union Pacific
 Is in Birmingham
AMAZED AT LACK
 OF INFORMATION
Few Manufacturers in United States Know Anything About the Orient. Time for Them to Wake Up if
 They Expect to Profit by War

G. H. Corse, Jr.. special agent of the passenger department of the Union Pa cifc system, arrived In Birmingham last night and while here will do what he can to arouse interest In far-eastern com merce.
 Mir Corse has spent the past 10 years in the orient and Is thoroughly familiar with trade conditions. He will be glad to give any information at his disposal to those interested during his stay in Bir- mingham. He is stopping at the Tut wiler and will make the local Union Pa cifc offices his headquarters while here
 MT. Corse was for many years a trav cling representative of the Pacific Mail Steamship company. which is about to go out of business as a result of the La Toilette seamen's act.
 People seem to wonder said Mir Corse last night "how the seamen's act could put big steamship line out Of business It was simple. The act would compel 75 per cent of the crew in any department of an American steamship to be Americans or English, in effect. As a matter of fact. there are not enough competent American sailors on the Pa ctic coast to supply the steamers of the Pacific Mail alone.
 "Of course" said MT. Corse. "the milk has been spilled now. and there's no put for the Union Pacific in trying to build up American commerce with the orient. It is big subject naturally. but the man who knows oriental conditions is apt to be amazed at the lack of information American exporters and importers-ex- cept the very big houses-have about shipping to and from the far east.
 Why Halsey Manwaring, the Ameri- can who runs the Grand hotel in Yoko- hama, wanted last spring to put mod ern ice-cutting machine in his bar for the summer trade. He wrote to a manufact- urer here to ship such an article at once It should have reached him by the mid dle of June. When that time came, in- stead of the machine, there arrived a let ter from the American manufacturer which said, Please tell me how to ship And that manufacturer belongs to an association that could have easily given him the informa ton in five minutes As it would then have been impossible to get the machine to Yokohama before the middle of August the order was can celed.
 Must Change Methods
 Not long ago an American who had been in the porcelain business over there went over over there to buy Japanese pcrcelains lacquer ware, and so on. Ha did not know how to go about it. As a matter of fact one has to SCOUT the country for the little dealers, the tiny manufactures where the father and mother and all the children take part in getting out the product To do this re. quires a person who talks Japanese, and preferably an American who talks the language. Fortunately, the visitor had a letter of introduction to a man who was able to introduce him to an Americ9n so qualified, and who accompanied him exclaiming, We don't do business this way in the United States!' It is so diff cult to convince an American merchant that in the orient local methods of busl- ness are the only kind that can be suc- cessfully applied.
 "One thing American exporters must observe, to do business successfully out there, is to send their own agents, in stead of intrusting. their interests to British or Germans who are established, and who will give only second consider ation to American trade.
 "Regardless of all the publicity that has been given the subject. many American manufacturers still do not think 1t necessary to look for foreign trade. Yet the time Is close when the majority of our manufacturing concerns, owing to the development of methods. will have to export half of what they make. Somo seem to feel that the United States will gobble up the trade that European coun- tries have had with the orient. without so much as stretching a hand for it. AS a matter of fact, trade between the allied nations and the orient has been moving along during the war, perhaps a little re- duced in volume, but still in fair propor- tions. True Germany and Austria are cut off, but their agents in the east are alert. and with France, England and Rus sia if they adhere to their announced refusing to deal with Ger many after the war, the latter will con centrate her efforts upon China It is getting pretty near time for the Ameri can manufacturer to wake up''
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