Our firms are selling Connecticut clocks, Illinois farm machinery, and Massachusetts watches. I saw American typewriters in Wellington. There is a good market for all sorts of Yankee notions. The other day while riding on a train with a New Zealand merchant, I asked him what he thought of American goods. Pulling his right foot from under his travelling rug, he put it up on the seat beside me.
“You see those shoes?” said he. “They are American. They are the easiest shoes I have ever had on. They have not troubled me a day since I bought them.”
The New Zealand government is one of the chief customers for manufactured goods. It owns the railroads, builds bridges, and operates coal mines. Hence, its purchases are enormous. It buys all sorts of iron and steel building materials, as well as hardware, galvanized roofing, elevators, irrigation pumps, and all kinds of machinery and engineering apparatus.
We now have the best consular service of any commercial nation, and New Zealand offers a splendid field for its operations. Times have changed both in this Dominion and in Australia, since the day typified by the young man who got himself appointed consul at Melbourne. His only business experience had been as postmaster in his little home town in Wisconsin. He was asked by an American why he did not keep the State Department posted on the openings for American trade, and on the big business developments going on everywhere. He replied that he reported upon all things that the department directly asked for, but that he did not consider it best to advertise the great trade opportunities of Australia for fear it might call them to the attention of other nations.
New Zealand buyers give to British firms as many orders as they can, without too great a sacrifice of their own interests. This is especially true since the World War, as the people are anxious to do what they can to stimulate British trade and thus help the mother country pay her enormous debt and regain prosperity. I find here a strong love for Old England. Many New Zealanders, even those born and bred here, speak of a trip there as going “home,” and of British articles as goods “made at home.” The Dominion appears entirely content under the British Crown, doubtless because the bonds binding her are not tight. For example, in the World War, Great Britain could not have conscripted soldiers from the Dominion as France did from Algeria. It was the people themselves who decided in favour of compulsory military service, though not until many thousands of young men had already volunteered and gone overseas. In Australia, conscription was defeated by the voters of the Commonwealth.
I recently visited Invercargill, the town farthest south on this side of the world. It is the bottom city of the Pacific, far below the latitude of Cape Town, at the tip of Africa, and almost as far south as Punta Arenas at the tail of South America. It is at the extreme south of New Zealand, and as nice a little city of fifteen thousand people as you will find anywhere. The town is as well built as any of the same size in the United States. It has water works, good schools, a public library, and a beautiful park, upon the waters of which swim half-a-dozen jet-black swans.
Walking through the streets, I stopped at an agricultural implement store. It was filled with farming machinery, and I noticed that at least half of the stock was American. There were several Chicago drills, two Ohio harvesters, and some Illinois ploughs. I talked with the proprietor. He said he had a good sale for American reapers, and all sorts of American farming tools, but that the British and Canadians are trying to crowd us out of the market. Said he:
“One of your chief competitors is Canada. The Canadian firms will sell on longer time, and we can get better prices for their goods on that account. We have to give a discount for cash, and cash sales are much harder to make.”
On the same street I saw American bicycles in a shop window, and farther up, American handsaws. At present most of the cottons sold here come from England, but the people are beginning to buy our print goods. I saw some in a Wellington dry-goods store and asked the merchant where he got them. He replied that he had given an American firm a trial order, and that they were selling well. He showed me his invoice. It was for eight thousand dollars, and this he called a trial order. Most firms in the United States would consider it a pretty good one. But this part of the world is so far away that the merchants must buy a whole season’s stock in one consignment. And there is no chance for a re-order.
