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Capturing the Latin American Trade
No empty iteration of the Monroe doctrine, no reservation of canal privileges, will capture the trade of Latin America. This will be accomplished only by efforts to produce and to sell those countries the kind of goods that they want; measured, labeled, and packed their way; offered in the language that they understand; and, moreover, sold at attractive prices. Our consuls abroad report that in all these essentials American dealers are deficient and that British, French, and German manufacturers fill the South American markets.
To these rivals must be added another, for, in spite of old South American prejudices against Spain and Spanish goods, the Spaniards are quietly regaining their footing in those republics of whose trade a century ago the home country enjoyed the monopoly. Her advantages, we know, are a common language and familiarity with the ways of life and the tastes of the buyers. Spain produces just the kind of wine, olive oil, and canned goods that South America wants; she turns out the kind of paper, the patterns of cotton goods, the styles of tools and implements, the clothing, shoes, and weapons used in Latin America; and the result is that she gets the trade. One-sixth, at least, of her entire exports goes to her former possessions.
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South Africa has been successfully operating an agricultural parcel post. By its instrumentality gold, diamonds, minerals, wool, feathers, saddlery, boots and shoes, confectionery, fruit, plants, seed, butter and eggs suitably packed, and other farm products are transported, and the producer and consumer have been brought together. From the report of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs we learn that the scheme has worked well, is a recognized and popular feature of the postal system, and is entirely feasible. The sparse settlements and widely scattered population have not operated to bar its success, as was feared at the time of its introduction.
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The duty of applying the remedy for wrecks rests, primarily, with the railroad managers. And what is the remedy, and how is it to be applied? It would seem that there can be but one answer: there must be stern discipline for taking risks. There must be thorough instruction as to what risks are and how to avoid them, just such instruction as the "safety first" movement is leading up to, but extended to every man in every department of every road. In addition, the promise that no engineman will be censured for losing or not making up time or for not running fast when it is not considered safe to do so must be changed to the positive, unequivocal statement that there will be a substantial penalty for every case of running fast when it is not safe to do so.—Railway Age Gazette.
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More and more attention, each year, is being given by the railroad managers to the locating of new kinds of industry along their lines. The roads in the West and the South nearly all have efficient industrial departments, land departments, or immigration departments. Their men seek out new industries, meet the steamers to tempt immigrants into their region, arrange for the purchase or rental of lands, and get together reports of the soil, the products, and the advantages of any desired location. Perhaps the greatest effort, however, is bent upon the location of new factories along the route. In one year one southern railroad induced more than seven hundred men to establish industries along its lines, after the railroads had made complete and painstaking investigation of all the conditions that would confront the prospective manufacturers.