HOW FRENCHMEN DO BUSINESS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 183, 9 January 1912, Page 4

HOW FRENCHMEN DO BUSINESS.

"The time is coming," says Mr. James F. Collins m the .World's Work, "when the liritish and American engineer and the factory superintendent, and the man of business generally, will find it profitable to spend a year or two in Paris studying . the ways in which the Frenchman gives beauty, finish and unity to his products," Whatever the Frenchman makes is fairly certain to be vitalised with ideas. It may, be 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 lines are everything and the best product of his nearest competitor often nothing at all in comparison. Handicraft everywhere predominates over machine processes in France. French goods are expensive, but they always find a 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 creatine new wealth. Most of their enterprise centres on providing goods for a lavish j consuming public at home and in liaulin» I

things round a sprawling country. John Bull has no continent, but 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 machirjery. , Germany's banking and shipping are of very recent development. Her money has been so urgently needed at home that she has few foreign investments to bring trade; but' Germany has built up a vast commerce with the world by means of aggressive salesmanship. No other country has such a force of travellers in the foreign field. The Frenchman sits placidly in Paris and skims the cream of the world's "carriage trade," as it were, while he sips his a peritif at a pavement cafe. Other nations underbid each other in price competition, but this seldom troubles the Frenchman. It is a prime merit that his goods are dear. He gets the best prices on earth, and his customers cease comparing prices when they come to him, because his goods are incomparable.