on which is so potent in leading to
business relations.

3. The American producer should arrange to conform his credit system to
that prevailing in the country where he wishes to sell goods. There is
no more money lost upon commercial credits in South America than there
is in North America; but business men there have their own ways of doing
business; they have to adapt the credits they receive to the credits
they give. It is often inconvenient and disagreeable, and it is
sometimes impossible, for them to conform to our ways, and the
requirement that they should do so is a serious obstacle to trade.

To understand credits it is, of course, necessary to know something
about the character, trustworthiness, and commercial standing of the
purchaser, and the American producer or merchant who would sell goods in
South America must have some means of knowledge upon this subject. This
leads naturally to the next observation I have to make.

4. The establishment of banks should be brought about. The Americans
already engaged in South American trade could well afford to subscribe
the capital and establish an American bank in each of the principal
cities of South America. This is a fact, first, because nothing but very
bad management could prevent such a bank from making money; capital is
much needed in those cities, and six, eight, and ten per cent can be
obtained for money upon just as safe security as can be had in Kansas
City, St. Louis, or New York. It is a fact also because the American
bank would furnish a source of information as to the standing of the
South American purchasers to whom credit may be extended, and because
American banks would relieve American business in South America from the
disadvantage which now exists of making all its financial transactions
through Europe instead of directly with the United States. It is
unfortunately true that among hundreds of thousands of possible
customers the United States now stands in a position of assumed
financial and business inferiority to the countries through whose
banking houses all its business must be done.

5. The American merchant should himself acquire, if he has not already
done so, and should impress upon all his agents that respect for the
South American to which he is justly entitled and which is the essential
requisite to respect from the South American. We are different in many
ways as to character and methods. In dealing with all foreign people, it
is imp