The Waikato Times With which is incorporated The Waikato Argus. THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 1917. THE GERMAN TRADER

Waikato Times, Volume 88, Issue 13469, 26 April 1917, Page 4

The Waikato Times With which is incorporated The Waikato Argus. THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 1917. THE GERMAN TRADER

A recently received Australian exchange contains an interesting review nf a book, "General Cargo," in which Mr Richard E. Goddard, himself associated with a British manufacturing house with word-wide, business connections, points out the special qualities of her traders that have enabled Germany to oust British industries from so many markets,.and to anticipate them in others. .Mr Goddard lias himself done a good deal of observant travelling up and down the face of the globe, and is therefore fairly well qualified to write on the subject he has chosen. He takes us from the Ato Z of trade, from office organisation at home to the conciliation of an Oriental purchaser who has ordered sherbet and by some misadventure has received a consignment of Epsom salts. He shows, in his book at any rate, as obsessed by none of the proverbial conventionality and convcrsatism of the British merchant, and he exhorts his brother merchants to yield a little to the exigencies of modern commerce, and does not hesitate to descend to apparent trifles that individually count for little but cumulatively count for much. For instance, he points out that certain llrms make a fetish of neatness and accuracy in their letters, and will not allow even a literal correction to be made in the typed copy. The whole letter has to be rewritten. This is all very well, observes Mr Goddard, but it is apt to become expensive. "Sixpence, or even fourpence, is too much to pay even for acknowledging a thousand pound cheque." Mr Goddard spares no pains to emphasise his hatred of the German as a man, but he does not allow his distaste in this respect to blind him to his capabilities as a trader simply because he understands the value of work, and does not adopt the high and mighty attitude of "There it is, take it or leave it." Nothing has been too small for the German to take into account, and he has always been able to appreciate the little things that, like coral insects, build up a great barrier to protect his own trade. He recognised, for instance, that in some countries even the purchase of a gross of kettles is not always merely a business transaction, but an episode which should be treated with every circumstance of dignity, including a personal interview. The author quotes a case from a Balkan State—not, he assures us, the same one in which the Minister for Foreign Affairs stole the British Ambassador's watch, and the Minister for Justice stole it back again, thereby averting an international complication. The British firm sent a dry, typed tender; the German sent an emissary who paid several visits to the prospective buyer, expatiated on the sheen and splendour of his samples and treated the whole transaction as an international treaty rather than as a sordid bargain. This flattered the vanity of the buyer, and as a direct consequence much trade was lost to Britain. Indeed, the German makes an admirable commercial traveller; "he will travel through a trackless jungle to sell a negro a necklace of beads, for he knows that thereby he secures a connection and a starting point for new trade." The Briton is not sufficiently concerned with detail. The German has built his trade on his attention to detail. Another case in point is quoted. The Oriental egg is much smaller than the Occidental egg, and the Briton in the East had difficulty in eating it out of ordinary egg-cups. For years he made representations to the British maker. The reply was invariably, in effect, "Eggs are eggs, and egg-cups are egg-cups. You can have a different scheme of colour and decoration, but the size must be the same." The German was less obstinate, and so if, in the East, you see a person eating an egg out of a suitable egg-cup, the chances are ten to one that it is of German origin. There may appear to be something flippant about this style of criticism of British commercial methods, but, coming from r ,. : . ■- a

source, it is quite possible that it may carry much more weight, and have much more practical effect, than would some much more technical and laboured presentation of the case. The (iermans, Mr Goddard also tells us, have beaten the British by their better understanding of what he calls "primitive psychology,'-' and particularly with regard tx> the "eye appeal." The British manufacturer, lie says, is content with the intrinsic merits of his product; he will not "get it up" with meretricious allurements. The German does so and scores all along the line. Inferior soap in wrappers of dainty design and colouring: synthetic scent in sumptuous llagons; irorgeous paint covering shoddy—tin se are his weapons of offence. The Cernian certainly has it where the "eye appeal" is concerned. And in this connection Mr Goddard proclaims a heretical dortrine. One usually (dinks thai the cheap flashy article soon wears out. whereas the costly but honestly-made one is as good as new when its rival has to he thrown away, and simply by its power of endurance ends by reconciling its owner to its homely aspect. Not so, says Mr Goddard. "The inferior object, if attractively painted and finished, will, as a rule, last quite as long as the more expensive one, and the reason being that it receives more careful treatment precisely on account of that more pleasing outward appear-

anee." He quotes chapter and verse for this revolutionary statement. Mr

Goddard's point of view is quite different from that of the ordinary traveller who records his impressions. He is not the tourist or the publicist, or the student. He is the man with something to sell and he looks on mankind with an appraising eye. His first question on leaving his ship is: "What do these folk want, and what can I persuade them that they want'.'" His second inquiry is whether and when these folk are likely to pay. Mr Godrlarrt, indeed, would give an old saying a new turn: "Tell me what a nation is and I will tell you what it will buy." And it is quite on the cards that his light-handed manner of dealing with a serious subject, investing it with a suspicion of ridicule that the Briton does m«t like, and stirring him to a new sense of rivalry, will attain its object where other more direct methods have failed. t