Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-09-01
EXPORTERS AIDED
IN BILL COLLECTION
Department of Commerce
Collects Useful Information
on Credit Conditions.
BY WILLIAM BRUCKART.

The Department of Commerce is
making a clearing house of itself for
dissemination of information and
schemes by which American exporters
81 have circumvented the adverse eX-
change situations and have been able
to make collections for the merchan-
disc sold abroad
. 1t is vital. in the departments opln-
g ion. that these trade connections be
maintained but it is equally important
TO the exporter that collections be mace
on the goods shipped. While Amerl-
can exporters have displayed great
: amount of resourcefuluesS in meeting
the conditions with which they nave
been confronted, the department be-
lieves other lines of business ought to
know about the plans that have worked
out successfully.
Eartering Policy.
Hence. E. f. Schrellbacher, whose
particular JOB in the department Is the
scanning Of foreign credit and coliec-
ton conditions, has issued an invita-
. ton to all and sundry who have been
able to combat the situation OF SUD
denly fuctuating exchange ana thus
hold onto their trade connections. He
said that he had been able to make
good use of many bits OF intormatlon'
telling how business transactions nave
p gone through and enabled both the
American exporter and the 1orel5h
. buver to emerge practically whole
It vas the official opinicn that cur
rent conditions as we'll as those OF last
, wear. have been such that the Amer
lean exporter was compelled to resort
to bartering or leaving the foreign pur-
chaser's money in the banks OF tnat
country or else take a severe loss py
forcing collections at time when the
BUYERS financial status was poor. IL
is as complicated as Chinese ptZzle
sometimes to figure out how the coliec-
lions can be made, ACCORDING 10 Mr.
Schnellbacher, but he believes they can
!,e ACCOMPLISHED without serious harm IN
many more instances than has been the
Gaze IN other verbs he considers
s. that if the American exporter can leave
n GOOD taste in the mouth OF the GUS
TONER. that customer won't fall such
easy prey to the foreign competitor.
Some of the methods to which eX-
porters have used to obtain the money
due them disclose Imagination that IS
commonly not supposed to exist IN puSl-
ness. For example, there was the IN
stance of the exporter whose conslgn-
n1ent to an Australian house was on
, the water long enough to witness the
American dollar become worth 81 Az IN
the customers town. The bill was
something like $4,000. There were
cables back and forth and much sour
rving around This is hcW 1t was
? finally worked out: The exporter in
structed his customer in Australia to
buy wool with the proceeds and to
ship the wool to Liverpool. The Wool
was duly sold and the American t1rm
was paid for the wool in dollar eX-
change that was at. or nearly, par
hn =
fered materially.
Tn another case, a New York eX-
porter sold a bill of goods to a Hun
garian firm BY the time the conslgnn,,
ment arrived. dollar exchange could
not be purchased in Hungary. More
, cables and transatlantic telephone calls.
The Hungarian firm finally sent through
a series of drafts in Hungarian pengoes ,
/. the exporter found some importers OF
Hungarian goods in New York and
. traded the pengo draft for dollar
checks The American importers pald
their bills with the pengoes.
.. Credit Survey Urged.
Mr.. Schnellbacher believes, there
. fore. that it behooves American eX-
. porters to survey the credit condltlonS
of their foreign market closely, as the
a first act: after that, they should study
:. Gtlo CONTRIBUTES Va Ci-dL 4tiS45AA At-N'A
ket and where they are sold, and then
they should become well enough &C
quainted with general world trade to
be able to hit on some plan that will
avoid losses of trade for them and re-
'duce the hardships on the customers.
The relation of exchange to eX-
tensions of drafts" said Mr.. Schnell-
bacher, lis becoming more obvious to
American exporters because of the
numerous cases occurring. From many
sources are reported instances Of buy
ers asking extensions on drafts, because
the exchange is so high as to make pay
ment almost impossible. In one in
stance the American exporter was alb.
" solutely unable to collect because OF
suddenly promulgated regulations. That
is just q typical case Of the dlf1cultles;
and we hope we can be able to help all
of them as we did in that case"
Copyright, 1879