COMMERCIAL MORALS.

Colonist, Volume LIII, Issue 12956, 22 November 1910, Page 4

COMMERCIAL MORALS.

Baron Okura, Japanese Minister of Agriculture- aiuLCoinnierce. who paid a vi§jt recently to Europe and America; has apparently been telling his countrymen home-truths which he gathered in the course ■of .Ms wanderings ; The Japanese, he is reported to have | said j are thoroughly distrusted in the K commercial circles of the "west. In Lyons nine siik merchants out, of every ten had to tell of dishonest practices on the part of Japanese manufacturers and in London the same story was told. A merchant of the latter city stated to the Baron that he. had proposed to order a quantity of porcelain on the strength of sampf.es shown at the Japanese Exhibition, but when it became known that he contemplated such a transaction ho was approached by a third party, who offered to do the same work for less' than half the price. Astonished by the proposal, he instituted- inquiries and found that -both parties were untrustworthy. Another illustration was furn'ishedbytlie case of embroidered screens. Numbers of these emild be sold a few years ago at higli prices in London.;, but defects in manufacture had driven them almost completely out of the market. As for the Exhibition, on© principal reason why things had not sold weTl was that people seemed to think when th© Exhibition a'.osod the unsold articles would be offered at a tithe of the prices now .marked -on them. Until trust was- re-established, said Baron Okura, there would be no sensible development of Japan's oversea trade.'