Evening star., 1928-10-21

been confined almost entirely to raw
materials and crude or simpler types of
staples-potash steel rails. glass, chem
icals, etc.-rather than in the realm
of more highly fabricated wares in
which our export growth has been most
conspicuous.
Attempts to cartelize such industries
as automobiles and motion picture films
have failed because of the obvious diff
Guilty of adjusting the widely divergent
interests, goodwill rights. etc, of hun
dreds of continental manufacturers
with all of their age-long peculiarities.
Similarly, the trade barrier problem,
which has so veXed our exports to Eu-
rope, is gradually giving way to sensible,
ar-sighted negotiation. The conclusion
of the convention recently signed by
81 nations, including the United States,
will relieve our commerce of much Of
the embarrassment of arbitrary restric-
tions, conflicting customs procedure,
uniform statistical practices and
other relics of wartime devices.
Romantic Trade History.
Americans are born traders. Through
cut our history foreign commerce has
formed a picturesque and even romantic
element in our national life. Especially
was this true in the thrilling days of
the clipper ships. when the speed and
beauty of the American craft were the
envy of the world Those were the
great days of SAIL" days of marvellous
adventure and superb achievement in
the newly-opened thester of commerce
around the Pacific. There was the fas-
cinating China trade, in which our
ships, with record passages to Asia, car
ried to Canton and other Oriental ports
the typical products of our new fac
tories and brought back the silks spices
and jade for which Columbus had
sought in vain.
These sturdy traders braved great
dangers, loneliness and hardship, the
incalculable menace of the vast Pacific
and the storm terrors of Cape Horn
They were the true heirs of those first
Phoenician adventurers who brought
the tin oars of distant Britain home to
Tyre, of the courageous Greeks, the
daring Saracens, the merchant princes
of Venice and the blond Hanseatic
Leaguers of the North. and the more
modern Spanish. Portuguese. Dutch and
English patl1finders.
And so today in this new era we find
once again a recrudescence of that same
clement of adventure. Perhaps much
of the picturesqueness has been taken
out by the precision of present-day
factual analysis. but some of 1t remains.
The old idea of irresponsible eXploita-
ton has disappeared and in its stead
we today have the worldwide installa-
ton of that fundamental tenet which
is so conspicuous in American trade
that every transaction must be mutu-
ally advantageous. Indeed. one of the
most gratifying aspects Of this whole
postwar development has been the
spread. not simply of American mer-
chandise. but of American business
practices and high standards.
Ours Is primarily quality trade; we
cannot, as a rule, meet the cut-price
rates of European traders with their
lower wage scales. except in those great
domestic market supplies a volume of
turnover that permits of drastic cur
tailments of prices below the levels that
are possible for the smaller industrial
units Of the Old World
One important element in the encour-
agement of this spread of American
practices and ideas is the increase in
the number of foreign students in our
technical schools. Today they number
more than 1000. and the Department
of Commerce and other agencies are
collaborating with foreign governments.
chambers of commerce and technical
institutions to attract more of the
younger generation to our laboratories
and classrooms.
It is, indeed, In every sense new
era in our commerce-that commerce
which was described by a distinguished
American statesman of the last century
as "the chief medium for diffusing
knowledge and the arts, the great
civilizer of the human race, which be-
gets mutual benefits between different
places and persons, binding together in
interest not only one people but nations
on the opposite sides of the earth"
(Copyright, 1925