Part 12

Latin America has always been a hotbed for disease. Be abstemious in eating and drinking. Alcoholic beverages should be taboo, inasmuch as they unnecessarily heat the system. Water supplies are inefficient and often polluted. Your drinking water should be boiled; if good water is not obtainable otherwise drink some reliable mineral water. Remember that plague comes from the bite of the flea, and yellow fever and malaria from the bite of the mosquito, so avoid as much as possible the places where these pests are to be found. Daily baths are apt to remove danger from flea bites and sleeping under a net minimizes the possibilities of contracting yellow and malarial fevers. Personal hygiene should always be observed. In twenty years of the roughest and toughest travelling up creeks and down tropical rivers, through forests heavy with dew, across barren, wind-swept plains, over mountains, in high and low altitudes, by exercising these suggested precautions I have had only one serious illness, yellow fever. Conditions have vastly improved since I first began my trips and are getting better every year. With judgment one could now take a journey all over Latin America without any physical dangers or serious illness intervening, and with less risk than he would be liable to encounter on a trip between New York and Chicago.

From a perusal of the requirements necessary for a salesman in this territory, and I may add that I have not overcolored, or underestimated them, it is apparent that the right man will be difficult to find. If a house cannot see its way clear to enter this field with the right kind of a representative, it had better remain out of it altogether or combine with several concerns in allied lines and send one high grade man to represent them jointly. It is extremely doubtful if any one could do justice to more than five firms in such a venture. The plan adopted by European houses is to send a capable young man to one of the countries and let him live there until he has acquired the language, the customs of the people and their ways of doing business. Then they put him on the road. This serves to demonstrate the thoroughness which marked every step of the European conquest of these markets. Our American public schools are now instructing pupils in Spanish and Latin Americans are coming to this country to acquire English in increasing numbers right along, so that the possibilities are that within a few years these conditions will change for the better. To-day, however, the efficient, competent and reliable salesman for Latin America is so rare and so much in demand that he can practically name his own salary.

Nearly every country in Latin America requires that a license to sell goods must be taken out by the salesman before he can do business within its territory, and as a result there has arisen much cause for complaint. As a rule these taxes or fees are entirely too high and out of proportion to those charged anywhere else in the world, thereby creating a natural tendency to evade the law by every possible means. In some localities runners about the hotels stand in with the authorities and for a small sum provide guests with the necessary paper entitling them to sell goods, while in other places the law is practically ignored.

The right to collect this tax in many countries is sold yearly by the municipal authorities for a lump sum to some individual, who always endeavors to collect as much as he can from the concession. Beware of the person who holds this right. He has at his beck and call a score of petty employes about the city and around the hotels who report your movements to him, and the result is generally disastrous to you, especially if you try to do business without his permission.

In the Argentine republic for example each province has a fixed fee for this purpose and the total sum, if paid, would eliminate the profits from the average amount of your sales. Failure to pay generally means a term in jail.

The merchant’s yearly taxes in many countries includes the right to sell goods by travelling salesmen and if he is approached properly by a non-resident representative will allow him to take advantage of his business foresight and use this permit, thereby giving a legitimate and legal opportunity to omit paying these obnoxious charges. By observing these suggestions and the exercise of diplomacy and good judgment, little need be feared from the authorities in this connection.

Before entering a foreign country for the first time, it is well to obtain letters of introduction to leading merchants and especially to government officials. They prove wonderfully beneficial and are highly successful in smoothing out the rough places which are sure to be met with in the paths of business. It generally pays to act implicitly on the advice given by responsible people living in the land wherein you are a pilgrim, for they are well acquainted with local idiosyncrasies, and can suggest the exact spot where a small tip will facilitate matters materially.

Be sure to cultivate the acquaintance of the high grade old time traveller whom you will be certain to meet sooner or later on your trip. You will find him pregnant with pertinent and useful suggestions, which will do much toward making your initial trip a success. Years of experience in the Latin American school of business have given him a marvellous amount of wisdom, which you will always find him willing to dispense if you are the right kind and not trying to impress the world with your superior knowledge.

Both as a matter of courtesy and as a good business proposition be sure to call on the American consular officer whom you will always find at the port. He is in touch with the local merchants, is generally well informed as to market conditions and can give you many practical suggestions. He also has a line on the financial standing of most dealers throughout his territory.

Be sure that your order blanks are printed in triplicate and in Spanish for all countries except Brazil where the language is Portuguese. Ample space should be provided under the captions “Terms”; “How Packed”; “How Invoiced”; “How Shipped.” When possible, I have always insisted on the buyer signing the order and filling in with his own handwriting the spaces referred to. There can be no cause for refusal to accept the goods, if you have complied with the written conditions of the merchant. Very naturally when the order has been signed the merchant should have a copy, another sent to the house, while you retain the third one for your personal files and for future reference.

If possible always carry your samples in one or more cases. Clothes should never be packed with them, but in separate trunks. Now and then you will find officious and over energetic customs officials. Treat them with courtesy, even if they irritate you. Remember that they can make you endless trouble and that they may understand any caustic remarks you may venture to make in English. As a rule, however, these officials are very considerate. If you are selling shoes, it is wise to bring only one sample of each pair. If you carry a line of silverware, have each sample sawed in half. This will at once remove suspicion from you as far as the customs are concerned.

If you are to travel the West Indies, Central America and the northern countries of South America, including Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, light clothes should be relied upon. Remember too that in the highlands and mountainous districts of these countries it is often cool, especially at night, and a light overcoat is therefore advisable. In the highlands of Peru, Bolivia and Chile, heavy clothes are always worn. The climate of Southern Chile, Argentine, Uruguay and Paraguay is much like our middle States, excepting that the seasons are reversed, their winter corresponding to our summer and vice versa. A trunk packed for a complete trip for all of Latin America should therefore include both summer and winter clothing.

It is wise to pay much attention to the style and nature of your correspondence. American business men for years have been concentrating and condensing their thoughts—saying in a few words the same thing that formerly were expressed in pages. The Latin American has not yet practiced this conservative method of expressing himself and as a result his correspondence is voluminous and he indulges in word paintings that are picturesque and unique but not practical. If you are not as excessive in this respect as he is, the chances are, unless he knows you exceedingly well, that he will construe your letters as brusque and far from courteous. His letters will be filled with the sentimental phrases of past ages. This is his idea of politeness and should be your guide in addressing him. You cannot be too verbose in your communications. He comes from a race noted for its grandiloquent declamations and this typical characteristic, this desire to figuratively gild refined gold, add a perfume to the violet and a whiteness to the lily, means much to him. It is one of his ways of estimating your educational worth and of calibrating your standing as a gentleman. I know of no better exemplification of this than a comparison between the flowery way Latin American letters are terminated and our own. It is more personal, more deferential and more impressive to sign yourself, “Your attentive and secure servant who kisses your hand,” than briefly and harshly, “Yours very truly,” yet the former method is the one in which practically all letters close coming from these sunny lands.

Bills, catalogues, price-lists, in a word all “literature” should be in the language of the country for obvious reasons and in having these translated be sure to employ only experienced and able translators. Nothing paves the way for so much ridicule as poorly expressed and badly produced business documents, for the keen eye of the Latin notes errors with great precision. Efficiently produced and artistically printed materials of this nature impress one in these lands and help materially in giving you and your firm a high standing in the minds of the native merchants, while poorly got up pamphlets and the like open his flood gates of criticism and prejudice both against you and your goods. All weights and measurements should be in the metric system.

Be sure always to bear in mind that first-class mail to Latin America, excepting Panama, Mexico, Cuba and Porto Rico, cost five cents an ounce or fraction thereof and three cents for each additional ounce or fraction thereof; all printed matter, one cent for each two ounces or fraction thereof. Be careful therefore to put full postage on all correspondence, otherwise your mail will be delayed and its recipient subjected to a series of fines for your sin in short postage which will have the effect of hurting your cause. Mistakes of this kind are unwarranted and you should caution the house and the one in charge of the mail to put proper postage on letters. Latin American merchants always look upon letters short-posted as a shrewd Yankee plan to make them pay part of the expenses of your establishment. From their point of view this is not far from right either, for they are never guilty of this fault so very prevalent among Americans.

If you have no fixed address instruct your correspondents to send all mail in care of the consul of the United States of America, at each port where you intend stopping. Remember that consuls are to be found only at seaports. To address a letter Care of the Consul for the United States of America, Bogota, Colombia, would practically mean that you would never get the letter, for the reasons that these officials are found for example in Colombia, at Barranquilla, Savanilla, Santa Marta, and along the seaboard. It is unwise to send mail in care of the General Delivery. Later on after you have been over the territory and established friendly relations with some dealer or merchant, mail may be sent in his care.

Passports are unnecessary in Latin America.

Funds should be carried in the form of Letters of Credit. It is wise to take one of these in Dollars and Cents and the other in Pounds Sterling, as there will be many opportunities to use one of these advantageously in selling exchange when the other cannot be so employed. This all depends of course on the local demands for foreign exchange, and before buying money, it is wise to ascertain which letter of credit can be used more profitably. The saving which can be made in the course of a long trip in closely watching the price of money and buying when conditions favor you, is worthy of your best attention.

XXIII CUSTOM-HOUSES AND TARIFFS

No one can fully appreciate what difficulties custom-houses and tariffs can cause until he has had experience with those in Latin America. The custom-house officials deem it their duty to harass, embarrass, annoy and add to the troubles, worries and expenses of the merchant in these lands. They are veritable boulders in the path of business progress. The charges, fees, tariffs, taxes, and the hundred and one incidental and unwarranted expenses which exist in no other custom-houses in the world save in those of Latin America, change from day to day and are susceptible to as many interpretations as there are government employees having any work to do with the goods under consideration. It would be the height of folly to attempt to give tariffs and other custom-house charges in any Latin American country to-day, for by to-morrow fully half of them would be changed, and let me add that the alteration is always in the form of an additional charge and never a reduction. Tariffs are extreme and exorbitant, subject to the whims and financial needs of those in power and liable to complete variation without warning. Customs officials are recruited always from the class of “politicos” hereinbefore discussed. The positions which they fill are the political plums of the land. These men have not the interest of their country, their countrymen or the merchants within their borders at heart. Their desire is to acquire wealth by exploiting those with whom their official duties bring them in contact, and they have reduced this to a perfect science. The doings of Tammany are in the kindergarten class as compared with these exponents of the theory that to the victor belongs the spoils. The schemes designed and resorted to by these modern inquisitors are almost beyond belief, and could only emanate from the brains of those whose ancestors received their schooling in the days when the “_auto da fe_” was common and Torquemada reigned supreme. Let me illustrate by a few custom-house rulings taken at random from different Latin American ports.

In a certain Central American country, clinical thermometers are admitted duty free, according to the government tariff schedule. Laboring under this belief a local druggist ordered one hundred. Imagine his surprise when the customs collector charged him the duty assessed on cut glass decanters, classing the thermometers as “etched glass containers.” Their contents—mercury—was classed as an explosive at a prohibitive rate and for “trying to evade the customs” a fine of $500.00 was added, or instead of getting the goods in, without charges, the importer was obliged to pay $642.50 or go to jail.

In a shipment of pickles, because the invoice failed to state whether they were put up in vinegar or mustard, a fine of $100.00 was collected.

On a box of candy weighing five pounds, sent as a present, the nature of the ingredients of each separate piece of candy was not indicated, and a fine of $80.00 imposed and obtained.

The bar of a famous ex-prize-fighter has been for years in a Latin American custom house because the importer never could raise the money to pay the arbitrary fine exacted. Brass pays a high duty according to the schedule of the country to which this bar was shipped, because cartridges can be made from it, although there is not an ammunition factory in the entire land. In the decorations of the wooden pillars at the end of the bar, there were one or two strips of brass about two inches wide. The whole bar was assessed as of this metal and a duty and fine amounting to several thousand dollars imposed, which caused the American who bought it and who had intended to open a café in one of its cities, to get out of the place on the first ship, leaving the bar as a souvenir.

An iron bed, with four hollow brass balls as ornaments on the end posts met with the same treatment in the same custom-house, paying a duty of $200.00.

Theatrical appliances are free everywhere, especially if the property of a traveling troupe. Despite this fact and a positive statement to this effect in the tariff regulations, I knew one large Latin American country, wherein a _carousel_, or “flying-horse” outfit, was refused admission unless the owner paid the duty charged on live stock, each wooden horse being assessed at the rate of $25.00, which is the tariff on breeding stallions.

Thefts by minor employees of the custom-house are only too common. As a rule these men are poorly paid and add to their scanty income by appropriating whatever comes within their reach. I have known of cases of soap, provisions, perfumes, shoes and the like to be entirely confiscated in this manner. There is absolutely no redress. Very often the higher employees are implicated in these nefarious practices. In one of the largest and most progressive of Latin American cities, all the foreign and native merchants had been receiving cases short of their invoiced contents. Complaints to the authorities did not remedy matters. Finally the thieves became bolder and the thefts more extensive, many merchants being offered their own goods for sale at prices less than they originally cost abroad. Concerted diplomatic pressure was brought to bear, and an investigation promised. The day before the official hearing, the entire block of custom houses involved was burnt, a strange coincidence being that the four car tracks in front thereof, were occupied with loaded freight cars so that the fire engines could not get near enough to stop the conflagration. All records were thus destroyed and nothing could be done, the loss, involving millions of dollars, falling as usual on the foreign merchant.

Pages could be filled with similar data. All of our consular offices are cognizant of these outrages, yet nothing definite has been attempted to stop them. No matter what precautions the exporter takes, or how closely he follows the shipping instructions, his customer can always be victimized by these scheming officials. European nations suffer equally with us and it would seem that the time is ripe for some united action on the part of the great exporting countries to remedy this growing evil, for that it hurts trade cannot be denied.

Not only are there unwarranted and excessive duties charged on imports but on exports as well, and on these exports we as the largest user of the things produced in Latin America pay the bill. These conditions should be attended to at once, and it should be the business of our State Department to adjust them properly.

On hides, coffee, rubber and sugar, which are the leading exports from these countries, the United States charges no duty, or a merely nominal one. The remarkable feature of this trade is that every Latin American country imposes on all of these articles heavy export charges, which according to their own laws are unconstitutional, and we pay the bills, at the same time allowing them to impose exorbitant duties, outrageous port charges, and illegitimate fines on our exports to them. It may be argued that in the end the cost is finally borne by them, but the fact nevertheless remains that there is much work here to be done by our government to overcome these conditions for the benefit of all parties involved. It is decidedly unfair for a country to collect revenues both ways, namely, on its exports to us and on our exports to it.

The importer is the one who bears the brunt of these burdens. He is continually paying bribes or fines which are of course added to the cost of the goods. Failure on his part to “come across” means delays, loss of goods, higher port charges and incalculable annoyances. One of the great objections to this system of robbery aside from its basic principle of error is that one shipment does not serve as a means for calculating a price on the next one. A new custom-house official (and custom-house officials are changed in these lands as often as a chameleon changes color) may have come into office between shipments requiring a higher standard of fines and bribes to placate. This obviously hurts the sale of any article and makes the merchant hesitate to renew orders. Both importers and exporters have preferred to be harassed, fearing that their failure to comply with these unwarranted and illegal demands would result in the exclusion of their goods from the country, a condition which has often been imposed. Concerted action on the part of all nations to stop this blackmail would meet with the support of the merchants and importers of these lands, and the sooner some step in this direction is taken the better.

Under the condition of affairs now existing, and the long-continued attitude of our government toward all of Latin America, it seems as if there is no hope for our people or merchants and that we must submit uncomplainingly to these iniquities. There can be no doubt but that the existence of such a state of affairs has done much to retard the healthy growth of trade relations between all of these countries and the rest of the world. Latin-American merchants are absolutely powerless to remedy the situation by themselves. Attempts to improve must come from the outside and be presented through diplomatic channels and most emphatically insisted upon. A determined effort on the part of this government would do much to bring about a change and would be a most potent factor in extending our trade relations in these lands.

It may be argued that despite the system of fines, bribes and graft which are so intimately associated with the Latin American custom-houses the lands are prosperous and their merchants thriving, but the fact cannot be disputed that the practice is decidedly wrong and reflects materially on the integrity and dignity of the nation permitting it and positively hampers the legitimate growth of trade.

XXIV TRADE MARKS