The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-02-22


 our trade with China Is that it is talk ed so much about. For there is little about the trade statistics to fire enthu- siasm. Before the war our trade with China totaled barely more than our combined trade with Montenegro, AL bania and Servla, and was consider ably less than that with the three Scandinavian countries. And espec- ially should our China trade seem dull to those who gauge the profitableness of foreign trade by excess of exports. We always buy from China more than we sell her. In fact, during the dec ade preceding the war our imports fluctuated between 16 and 25 mil lions, establishing no positive trend either upward or downward. In 1914 our sales to China were only one and a third per cent. of our total exports. Facts are sometimes said to be cold; these are frigid-
 Though China Is a purchasing na- ton with an "unfavorable'' balance of trade, and though we are a selling nation, we normally buy about twice as much from her as we sell to her. China the buyer and America the sell CT simply do not get together.
 When we consider the exceptional goodwill that Chinese bear toward Americans, the skimpiness of our sales is surprising. A Chinese street song, composed after the punitive ex- petitions of the powers in 1900 and still sung by the coofies of North China, clearly expresses this good will. Its jingling refrain runs some thing like this:
 'The Americans are all right: the English are pretty good: it is only the Germans that are the bad old hens eggs"
 As the song suggests, the ledgers of other nations trading with China con- tain their own private balances of goodwill, but Uncle Sam is the chief holder of this intangible asset.
 The milder retaliation by the Amer ican troops after the Boxer excesses is only one of numerous acts that have won for us the supreme good will of the Chinese. The remission for education purposes of a large part of our share in the crushing indemni- ties levied upon China after the Box CT uprising is also gratefully remem- bered by millions of Chinese today We were the first to recognize the new Republic in 1911 and the seconG to approve the commercial treaty o1 1902. Thrice have we stood forenos among the powers willing to acced' to China's request for an increase il her customs tariff held to be abou two and half per cent ad valorem b. treaty while Japan with other power has twice obstinate1y blocked the re Sform The refusal of President Will son in 1913 to support the Americal bankers in a Sextuple Group tha sought to acquire from the tsmporar! rulers of China usurious n1onopol. of loans expressed again our definit desire to maintain a free and united China
 Fruitful as might be our net good will in China, the fact remains tha before the war our dealings with tha country amounted to less than 10 pc cent of it's total foreign trade. I goodwill of this sort so very weight, after all? Japan found it an appre ciable factor in spite of the fact tha her total dealings with China ordin arily double ours. Her long series o high handed acts in China culminat ing in her ill-conceived twenty-o demands resulted in an effective boy colt by which she immediately los millions of trade, turned from he markets thousands of prospective GUS toners for long time to come, an invited retaliation in the erection C scores of competitive plants by Chi nese. Japan appreciated her los when it was too late. Her change ( cabinet policy toward China has bee regarded by the Chinese as an attemI to change the leopard's spots.
 France also found the goodwill ( the Chinese people a valuable asse When on purely technical ground she forcibly seized the Laohsikai are adjoining her concession at Tientst last year and imprisoned a squad Chinese policemen on duty there, Oh nese patriots made a run on Frent banks, deserted the employ of Frent firms, and raised a boycott that w cost the traders of France more thS the stolen mud flats will every vie anyone.
 Goods will not sell themselves China any faster than elsewhere. TT main reason why we have not i creased our sales there is evident: o merchants have relied chiefly agencies. The manager of a kerose company once lOlu OuT q tache that in the old days when l oil was sold through an agency prospective purchaser would have knock down whole office forces underlings to get his requests to hea quarters" This company later put own sales organization into the ter tory. and its sales increased tenfold five years.
 1F wing that the dragon of ancient Gt many spat fire, slew the reptile wi a fire extinguisher. As his reward claimed not the kings daughter, vas the custom at that period, but monopoly of eyeglasses for German virtual monopoly almost as va. able, that of printing banknotes China, has been maintained by salesman who has for years obsery at close range every move of the c nese dragon. Few of the huge ord bagged by this representative e, would have gone to his plant had studied the situation from a vants point 2,000 miles away.
 Having an agent on the field often proved of value in other wa An order from native mines n Changsha for two huge boilers ' promptly filled by 8 firm in Ameri The boilers were rushed off on 1 cars and in due time set down