THE FRENCHMAN’S WAYS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 19, 5 January 1912, Page 4

THE FRENCHMAN’S WAYS.

“The time is coming,” says Mr. James E. Coll us, in the 1 IVorld s Work,” “when the British and American engineer and the factory superintendent, and the man of business generally, will find it profitable to spend a year or two in Pans studying the ways in which the Frenchman gives beau tv, finish, and unity to his products!” Whatever , the Frenchman makes is fairly certain to he vitalised with ideas. It may he a jewelled collar or a bronze, a sauce or a perfume, a piece of lace or a piece of millinery he will put personality into it and artistic feeling. Everything is produced with delicate perception and artistic care. He takes infinite pains. He has been doing it for generations. It not only pays, but has put him so far ahead of the rest of the world in many products that his goods in these linos are everything, and the best product of his nearest competitor often nothing at all in comparison. Handicraft everywhere predominates over machine processes in France. Frencn goods are expensive, but they always find ready sale because they have just ■that individuality which is impossible in the cheap machine-made article. Americans prosper because they have a continent to develop, with boundless possibilities for creating new wealth. Most of their enterprise centres on oroviding goods for a lavish consuming public at home and in hauling things round a sprawling country. John Bull has no continent, hut he does a tremendous business because he has been active in lending his capital to develop other , countries. The world trades with,him because it owes him interest on the mortgage. He has the best banking and the best shipping machinery. Germany’s hanking and shipping are of very recent:.development. Her money has been so urgently needed at home that she has few foreign investments to bring 1 trade; but Germany, has built up a vast commerce with ....tbe world by means of aggressive salesmanship. No other country has such a force of travellers in the foreign field. ,1 he Frenchman sits placidly in Paris and skims the cream of the world’s “carriage trade,” as' it were, while he sips his a perltif at a pavement cafe. Other nations underbid each other in price competition, but this seldom troubles the Frenchman. It is a prime merit that bis goods are dear. He gets the best prices on earth, and his customers cease comparing prices when they come to him, because bis goods are incomparable.