HOW GERMANY IS GETTING TRADE

Cromwell Argus, Volume L, Issue 2650, 8 December 1919, Page 6

HOW GERMANY IS GETTING TRADE

TRAVELLERS IX BATTALIONS. Mr W. G. Shepherd, Exchange correspondent at Berne, &a\ s Gorman commercial travellers are overrunning Switzerland. " The British or American business man who hopes to compete will have to alter many of his former methods to cut his prices down to the minimum, f went .into a store and purchased c very ingenious can-opener of German manufacture. The dealer showed mo a score of articles he hud purchased f nun German ' commercials.' "' 'Hie can-opener yen bought,' he explained, 'is of the same type as this, which we make in Switzerland. I'd rather sell you the Swiss article, but I make more money en the German. The Germans haven't raised their prices over pre-war rrtes, and when we buy at the level of the- mark and sell at the level of the, Swiss franc we make more money on German goods than we did before the war. About 600 ironmongers in Switzerland decided they would buy from German firms if the Germans would sell for marks; i I not, from France. The Germans agreed immediately to tpjote their prices in marks, and before many days the Swiss ironmongers were being vjf.iled by German salesmen. i got a, lot of things last .May from several German firms, who gave me quick delivery. f waited for the bills, and when: they didn't come wrote; to the firm. They wrote that they were in no hurry for the money. Their salesmen dealt only with reliable firms, and they were not worried if I wasn't. Times were hard, they knew, and when they really needed the money they would ask me for it. And 1 haven't had a bill yet,' " German salesmen told him. added Mr Shepherd, their firms had "whole battalions " of salesmen they wore ready to send 'into Russia as soon as Russia opened up. With the mark almost as low as the ionble, and with money of the Allied nations the highest dn the world, the German as getting a decided advantage from the fall of his own money, and will turn it to his benefit in Russia. That the German is preparing to enter the Allied countries with his wares is beyond dispute. When he tries to undersell the market in France, Belgium, or England, lie can give as an excuse the lowness of the mark lev-el. This will be an argument thai will tet»t many a merchant, and will require good sound patriotism to withstand.