We will all agree with the director Jof the U. S. Department of Commerce that vigorous completion jaiways exist in international commerce and because of that he warns the merchants of America who are Jengaged in foreign trade that they not take their job lightly.
he goes on to say, stating a magnificent truth, "in the broader view world commerce represents world ce-operation. The gain of any lone country is not promoted by the loss of any other, but rather in the gain of all."
'There is a high altruistic finish to ithe last paragraph in the report, in which there is, in the opinion of many, some' inconsistency of thought. At the present time th world is in great measure in such Jo topsy-tury condition because of the truth that the gain of one country is not promoted by the loss of any other. So lenz as the dead-weight of war debts is present in the economic world there Jeannot be rapid and permanent reorganization. With all her pro~ sperity, both at home and abroad, the United States will probably in time come to sce that it will be to her advantage to modify the debt settlements. So long as Europe is engaged in repaying debts of huge sums incurred by destruction, she will have less to spend in buying American products.
Bat, returning to the question of the development of America's ex-trade, there cannot be'. any. doubt thatit has come to the point its own momentum, I know that [there are still people im China who ido not think that U.S. trade is as sound as it might be. We saw so much that was wrong during the [war years and for some time after that we are apt to think that Ameri-jeans cannot become a permanent Jcompetitor to Britons and others. But this idea now is exploded. American competition is here to stay. It must also be said to the jeredit of American merchants that, with their increased knowledge and experience in China, they have great-profited. In the old Jays the Chinese frankly preferred to trade with British and one or two con {tinental merchants, and took Ameri-lean cargo only when they could not ject what they. wanted elsewhere. Practices of many American houses with no knowledge of the idosynlegacies of China trade during the war did not help matters. When no European cargo was available, the naturally had to buy from America. But on many an occasion, leither by deliberate intent or due to the exigencies of war time, much lof the cargo indented for bore little lation to the delivered goods, and the Chinese often accepted because they had no alternative. That was why after the war, America suffered [from "cancellation of contracts" more than any other nation, and why, particularly in the ease of the '"war babies," so many Ameri can firms went out of business, To-day, however, it is claimed in this country that Sino-American trade is on a firm basis, and that nothing can keep it from growing to proportions which at the present time may seem impossible to competitors of the Stars and Stripes.
Time will tell. But if Ameri keeps up the pace, she surely will ultimately control a very substantial slice of both China's import and export trade,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.