Evening star., 1926-11-28
EUROPE'S PURCHASES ADVANCE
OVER 1913 MARK, DECLARES KLEIN
Buys Nearly Half of Ameri-
can Exports and Sends
More Goods Over Here.
Hoover's Lieutenant Issues
Warning to Keep Posted
on Markets Abroad.
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.


Europe does not love US, but she is
continuing to buy our goods. That is
the sum and substance of careful,
recent and first-hand survey of trans
atlantic conditions made by an expert
authority-Dr. Julius Klein, director
of Secretary Hoover'S Bureau of For
eign and Domestic Commerce. Dr.
Klein returned early in November
from personal conferences with % of
the Department of Commences bust
ness attaches in most of the important
countries of Europe. His net conclu
sion is that 'anti-American feeling in
Europe" is seriously exaggerated.
Europe's real attitude toward the
United States, DIR. Klein found, is not
represented by "the politicians, poets
and press" that in latter-day times
have presumed to reflect Old World
antagonisms to this country. 'Eu
rope is still, by all Odds" Hoover's in
TONER"
Over Pre-War Mark.
Figures talk. During the fiscal year
1926 Europe bought more than ST.
334 900 900 worth of American goods
That accounts for 49 per cent-round-
ly half Of our whole foreign sales.
exports to Europe were 81 ,479, 900, 900.
Measured in terms of present-day
price levels, the pre-war peak sales
would correspond to volume of $2,.
064 900 900 at this time In other
words, exports to Europe are now at
substantially higher point than on
the eve of the World War, despite the
theory that the Old Worlds purchas-
ing power was shot to pieces by that
tragedy and is yet far from recovery.
DR.. Klein could not learn that, eX-
cept in a few isolated instances, has
the "Shylock" talk across the pond re-
suited in American trade losses. On
the contrary, he re-discovered that the
average European buyer, all the way
from the housewives to industrial
magnates, are, as of yore, mainly in
terested in two things. Those things
are price and quality. When the
American article has both of them in
it's favor, whether it's the loWly prune
from California or a harvesting ma
chine from Illinois, that article gets
the business. "Nationalistic pa
trioteering has become very much Of
secondary influence" says Klein.
He found nobody going into the mar
ket lover there" with his own national
anthem on his lips and insisting that
nothing be shown him except wares
stamped made in" this, that or the
other country-depending on the one
to which he owes allegiance.
Purchases Reach 21,OOO,OO0.
Four countries have been variously
mentioned in recent times as succumb-
ing, in different degrees of intensity,
to Americanophobia. They are Bel.
gium, France, Italy and Spain. The
first three-named owe us many tens
of millions of dollars.
IF we analyZe our sales in those
countries" DR.. Klein points out, land
take dozen typical American COM
| moditfes easily recognized there as
Yankee products talking machines,
automobiles, canned fruits, tires, radio
apparatus, typeWriters and the like)
we find that those sales this year, up
to October /, amounted to just a few
dollars under $21,000,000, whereas
during the corresponding period in
1925 they totaled something over
$20,000,000. This small, but satisfac-
tory, advance in export Of these Amer
lean specialties certainly does not sub
stantiate any theory of commercial
antagonism toward the United States
What is Europe's thought with re-
gard to the tariff barriers America
sets up against her sales in our mar.
ket?" DR.. Klein was asked.
well, the fact happens to be-" he
replied, that we are today taking a
larger proportion Of the exports of
our European friends than we did
before the war. For instance, in 1913
Great Britain's sales to us were only