Colonel Cosgrave's speech on the value of Government-assisted commercial intelligence services in aid-Jing the trader should fall on receptive ears in China where the question of foreign trade promotion is recelv-Jing considerable attention. China's products are being marketed abroad fu a very haphazard manner, depending chiefly on private enterprise Jalthough the services of foreign trade agencies are utilized, and freely Joftered, but no organized effort has been made. Point is given to this defect by Mr. Ho Ping-yin, Director. of the Bureau of Foreign Trade writing in "The Peoples Tribune," jon the subject. He mentions the Jexample of other governments which sent abroad agents to study market feonditions and collect and compile material in order to supply informa-, ton to traders, He continues:
Although Chinese Consulates have! been established im many commercial centres abroad, China has not sent out, Trade Commissioners to. any. country. 'This ie a plan which has Seen proposed but thas not matertaliz= ed. We find native guilds overseas formed' by Chinese "residents foreign countries, but their function limited only to, the affairs of their own particular business, and little Attention is pald to market and other conditions which do not appear direct fy'to concern them. With the -abence of good intelligence fe cities, it"te only "natural tha ignorance foreign market conditions is general fault among focal exporters, and leads them to conduct their Susiness blind ly, often resulting In tragic disaster. Tt'ts therefore of paramount import ance to have adequate facilities for obtaining information concerning for-feign market conditions before our foreign trade can be effectively developed.
With the establishment of the Bureau Jot Foreign Trade, which is striving to. reach the acme of eficiency and service, a start has been made to meet the requirements of the Chinese merchant and manufacturer and this start, modest though it may be, is Jan indication of a genuine realization responsible circles of the lack of ithe very. essential service which, [Colonel Cosgrave described.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.