"But, madam," asked the man, "have you cabled your company in America about the contract?"
"No," answered the woman. "What's the use of doing that. I have no money to spend on cables. Besides, I have full power to act. The price is all right and the buyers are ready to sign but they want to put into the agreement some silly business about delivery and I am asking you to help me get the boats."
"Come and see me," said the Manager.
The woman promised to call the next morning, but she never came. Just what she had in mind the Manager could never quite tell. But one thing was proved in this and similar activities: The "Countess" and most of her sisters who have been trying to put over coal and other contracts in Paris, have little or no real authorisation for their performances, and the principal result has been to prejudice French and Italian buyers against us.
In seeking to make French contracts, some of these adventurers (and they include both sexes) make the most extravagant claims. One group circulated a really startling prospectus. At the top was the imposing name of the corporation with a long list of branches in every part of the world. Then followed a list of names of individuals and firms with their assets supposed to be part and parcel of the corporation. One man whose name I had never heard before and who was set down as a Pittsburgher, was accredited with assets of $250,000,000. Under other individual and firm resources ranged from one to twenty-five million. The list included the name of a great American retail merchant, without his consent I might add, but the promoters had cunningly misspelled his name, which kept them within the pale of the law. The total assets of these "concerns personally responsible for all orders entrusted" was precisely $340,000,000. In spite of this dazzling array of misinformation, let it be said to the credit of the French buyer that he failed to fall for the glittering bait.
The more you go into the reasons why so many of our business men have failed in France, the more you find out that plain everyday business organisation seems to be conspicuously absent. Take, for example, the question of credit. The average American doing business in France proceeds in the assumption that every Frenchman is dishonest. This being his theory, he either exacts cash in advance or sells "cash against documents." Such a procedure galls the Frenchman who is accustomed to long credit from English, German, Swiss and Spanish manufacturers and merchants.
Of course, behind all these American errors in judgment and tact is a lack of organised credit information. To illustrate:
When I was in London, the English Managing Director of one of the greatest of Wall Street Banks received an inquiry from his home office for information about the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique (the French Line). The amazing thing was that this bank, that prides itself on its world-wide information, had no data regarding the leading steamship line between England and France. You may be sure that the Credit Lyonnais or any other French banking institution has a complete record of the American Line.
Not long ago, one of the largest banks in Chicago refused to extend credit to a French concern, although the French Government backed up the purchase. This concern had occasionally done business with a New York Trust Company in the Rue de la Paix, whose French Manager was a live, virile, far-seeing young American. The President of the French Company laid his case before him. Quick as a flash he said:
"All right! If they won't guarantee it, I will, and on my own responsibility."