Regulations amplified and modified by the new commercial treaties place in the hands of merchants one of the simplest and b-st means of adver: ising wares not already seen by native buyers up country. Quce registered for the purpose, a staumer can ply on the inland waters of China daring **zood behaviour." Registration is been greatly simplified and facilitated by the recent commercial treaties.
Now there is nothing to prevent enterprising merchants who desire to increase their business in wares not' known upcountry, building, purchasing, or hiring a small infant waters steamer for the purpose of a "floating exhibition." At present we find by reference to the Blackburn Commission that owing to the system of bayers coming with definite orders to Shanghai it is exovedingly hard to get new goods noticed in the interior, {If however, one or more such vessels Were registered for inland waters uavigntion and titted with show cases in which firms could arrange to exhibit goods, particularly machinery, the results should re-donnd to the credit of this energetic step. One really energetic man who can speak Chinese, or one not so gifted but with a good interpreter, could show off' the goods, all who des'ted to see them ut any town along the waterways, and from them book orders under advice of a compradore and good securi:
1 The curiosity of the Chinese makes avy kind of exhibition or sight a profitable {advertising medium, and if only used for this purpose the floating exhibition should commend itself to the minds of the bigger trading firms in Shanghai as well as the Chamber of Commerce and the various China Associations. As a start one vessel might be chartered and fitted up as a machinery aul implement exhibition and sent on a trial trip. This if successful might be renewed on a more: elaborate scale Many of the manufacturing firms at home would be willing to send. their agents here small working models of machinery and industrial plant to place in a floating exhibition, if the matter were taken up seriously and backed by Census, Chambers of Commerce, and the China
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.