From Our U.S.A. Correspondent.
Page 15
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A Real Worker.
On Thursday, the 17th March, something like a crisis occurred in New York. On Wall Street, the utmost excitement reigned, the telegraph systems were hopelessly congested, telephoning became impossible, and the tape maraines were all running hot. J. P. Morgan was in Rome otherwise, the trouble might have been worse. You ask what was it all abmit?
JULIAN HALFORD had arrived, He had come with his bags and his baggage, his despatch box and six blank order books, and the city was in an uproar. Relays of reporters interviewed him in taxis and on the express line of the subway, and for once the representative in the City showrooms turned and fled. Towards evening, the excitement subsided ; five and a half of the six order hooks had been lilted, and Julian himself was slumbering contentedly in an upper berth of a Pullman car en route for Buffalo. He telephoned to me, as I was taking off my overcoat on Friday morning, and an hour later he himself came into my office. Need I add that the remaining pages of the sixth order book were filled before he left, and that our purchasing agent had to be removed in the city ambulance for medical treatment— heart failure and nervous prostration ? He had put on 22 lb. weight on the voyage, so I felt it my duty to take him for some exercise to Niagara Falls, on the Saturday afternoon, prior to his departure for the remaining cities of the States. I had hoped to enclose a. photograph of him, as I took several snapshots during the day, but, before he comes again, I must have a special shutter fitted to my Kodak— my own is too slow. He is selling—No I am not writing up the advertisement pages, hut I hope, later on, to chronicle his progress in another column.
LATER.—The report that Messrs. J. P. Morgan and Co. have bought Julian Halford as a going concern is discredited.
The Magnitude of American Sales to the United Kingdom, and their Increasing Percentage.
Ever since Mr. Edge's speech to the Coventry Engineering Society, considerable interest, if I may judge from the various letters in all the English motor papers, has been taken by various people in the subject of the so-called American invasion. The probability or unlikelihood, impossibility or certainty, of its taking place in the not-distant future is being upheld by different writers, according to their respective points of view. It is, therefore, not without interest to turn to official statistics as to what the motor manufacturers of the -U.S.A. are really doing in the matter of export. For the benefit of the inquisitive in these matters, there are published statistics which remove all doubts on the subject. These figures are exceedingly instructive, and show the very rapid growth of American export trade ; but an examination of them shows what ought to be a very unpalatable fact to the British manufacturer, and that is the very large proportion of the total export trade which finds its way into England or to British possessions. -The following table is condensed from the official figures, and, though it does not give details of the sizes of the cars under consideration, or their actual numbers, it tells in plain figures the great value to which this business has grown now. That it will continue to grow is not to be doubted, and I have already had something to say on this same subject.
These figures are reliable, and they require little explanation. The salient facts to be brought out are that, during seven months ending January, 1910, the export trade was steadily growing, and that, in British territory alone, during the month of January last, the increase over the corresponding month of the previous year was 324 per cent. Look at the value of cars sold in England alone last January, $176,806, roughly speaking 35,361; putting an average value of, say, £400 per car, this means that 88 cars of American origin found their way to England, but the number was probably in excess of this, as £400 is no doubt on the high side. Now, price for price, the English touring car is very little better than its American competitor. I know this will be questioned, but it is certainly true of the better grades of car ; still it is better, and, if so, how does the inferior foreign car come to be sold at the same price? Remember, the American car is largely made of European materials, that American machine tools cost rather more over here than they can be bought for in England, labour is exactly double, and there is a journey of 1,000 miles from the factory. How is it done?
I will tell you in as palatable a way as I can, and I will only say this if I had to organize a sales department in England, I should employ American salesmen. That is the explanation. Of course, the English tariff question has long ago become a joke in America, and the American is long-headed enough to know that it is not a question of whether but when, and he is making his hay while the sun shines, with the object of getting a footing and a connection in the country first; meantime, the English salesman invites him to come in and walk about on him, I have already said that when the American van comes, it will come in battalions. The English trade papers have done their best, and a splendid best too, in making people alive to the necessity for motor transport; everyone now believes in it, and you have the cars, and the finest cars in the world at that. Why don't you sell them ? In the name of commonsense, get about and get busy, wake up, and look sharp about it! Cars here of all sorts are sold six months before they start to make them in the shops; they decide how many they can sell before the materials are bought, and then they make them all at once. In England, you make 50 cars and wonder how you will sell them most easily. H.E.T.