AN INTERESTING INTERVIEW.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4898, 9 October 1901, Page 1

AN INTERESTING INTERVIEW.

(A Clipping from the ' Adelaide Advertiser,' 13th April, 1901.) Mr B. A. Gilbert, who is staying at the ' York ' Hotel, granted a representative of the * Advertiser,' an interview yesterday. Mr Gilbert h the Australian manager of the Bile Bean Manufacturing Co., and is in Adelaide on business for his Firm. ' This is one of my periodical visits to your city, 1 said Mr Gilbert, ' and I can assure you, when the time comes for me to leave Adelaide, I am invariably sorry. Since I was here last the popularity of Bile Beans have increased beyond my most sanguine hopes. At the present timei they have tbe largest sale of any proprietory medicine. Their popularity might be assumed when it is known tbat 250,000 doses of Bile Beans are consumed every night throughout the world. ' The work to be done in Australia alone, must be heavy then ? * * Yes, for instance, the millions of pamphlets or booklets of the kind tbe public find at times under their doors, are in themselves a business to create and distribute. With our English and Australian Branches there is not a minute of the twentyfour hours passes without a Bile Bean book being placed under a door.' 'l ' Are your English ealeg as great as ever, Mr Gilbert ? ' ' Yes, in one of the laßt letters I received from Mr Fulford, our English manager, that gentleman writes me, tbat our laboratories are comparatively speaking, going night and day to cope with the demand.' * What would you describe as the principal reason for the wholesale consumption o£ your Cotnpany'u medicine? ' c Well, answered Mr Gilbert,' there are many reasons. Sifting down everything, however, I might say it is actually the acknowledged 1 merit of tbe article. When Bile Beans first made their appearance on the Australian market, they were of course untried, and suffererß took them as a sample, as it were. Gaining benefit they recommended them to their friends, and their friends recommended them again, and, so on.' 'It must cos!; an enormous sum of money to advertise to the extent you do?' * Yes,' goorl naturedly said Mr Gilbert, ' I don't tfiink you could ruu It, because they tell me, that as a rule, press representatives are not millionaires. -A.pa.rt from tbe maintaining of

branches and Btaffa throughout Australasia, the advertising department would tax tbe banking account of a healthy capitalist, I can assure you. There is hardly a newspaper in the Colonies, of any standing, in which we do not advertise.' 1 Do you rely solely upon advertising, for the sale of the Beans ? ' 1 Certainly not,' emphatically anBwered Mr Gilbert, ' Advertising is all very good in its way, but thousands of pounds spent, would not create and maintain the sale of an article) unless that article has merit. How often do you see an article

boomed and advertised to an enormous extent, yet, in a year perhaps, it goes off the market. No, it is merit and merit alone that we rely upon for the enormous sale of the Beans.' ' Will Federation increase the price per box of Bile Beana ? ' No, not in the slightest. Though I really believe that if there were an almost prohibitive tariff in the Commonwealth, making the price of Bile Beans two or three times as high as they are at present, the public would take them juat the same. Of coarse, if our sales were not enormous, we could not possibly sell tbe Beans at thirteen pence half-penny per box — it is tbe millions and millions, sold during the year, that enables us to sell them at such a low figure.' The interviewer thanked Mr Gilbert for the time be had given him, and tbe Manager of the Bile Bean Manufacturing Co. hurried off to keep an important business appointment.