ever before to meet world business competition. I want to be a better
salesman. Please send me some books on American salesmanship and also
some of the American trade papers. I have begun the study of Spanish
because I believe we are going to have our part in the Latin-American
trade." Here was a young Frenchman risking his life every moment in one
of the greatest battles the world has ever known: yet in the midst of
death he was looking forward to a new business life.
The whole attitude of the Frenchman toward life has undergone a change,
first under the stress of ruthless war, and under the spur of his
kindling desire for rehabilitation. Formerly, for example, the French
loathed to travel. When he knew he was going away on a journey, he spent
a month telling his relatives good-bye. Now he packs his bag and is off
in an hour to Lyon, Marseilles, Bordeaux, or any other place where
business might dictate.
The new and efficient French industrial machine is not the only factor
that American business in France must reckon with after the war. The
French woman is fast becoming a force, thus setting up an altogether
unequal and almost unfair competition, because to shrewd wit and
resource is added the power of sex and beauty.
In France, as most people know, the woman exerts an enormous influence,
regardless of her social class. In all regulated bourgeois families the
wife holds the purse strings; in the small shops she keeps the cash and
runs things generally. No average Frenchman would think of embarking on
any sort of enterprise without first talking it over with his _femme_,
who is also his partner. This team work lies at the root of all French
thrift.
The woman of the lower class has met the grim emergency of war with
sacrifice and courage. Not only has she faced the loss of those most
dear with uncomplaining lips, but she has taken her man's place
everywhere. You can see her standing Amazon-like in leather apron
pouring molten metal in the shell factory; she drives you in a cab or a
taxi; she runs the train and takes the tickets in the Underground: in
short, she has become a whole new asset in the human wealth of the
nation and as such she will help to make up for the inevitable shortage
of men.
Her sister of the upper class, at once the most practical and most
feminine of her sex, is also doing her bit. She is the lovely thorn in
the path of the American business promoter in France.
Before the war, it was rare to find this type of woman competing with
men in outside business affairs, although her influence has always
counted immensely in official life where she pulls the strings to get
husband or lover Government preferment or concession.
Since the war, however, necessity has sharply developed her latent
business qualities. Now it is not unusual to find her in direct
competition, using all those delightful charms with which Nature has
endowed her. This is especially true of widows and women whose husbands
are at the front. They often rely more upon persuasion than upon any
technical or practical knowledge. One reason why they succeed is their
almost uncanny knowledge of men. And this often enables them to grasp
swiftly the clue that business opportunity offers.
One night at dinner a Colonel's widow, a gracious and beguiling lady,
heard that the French Government was in the market for 50,000 head of
cattle. The next morning she sent half a dozen cables to South America,
got options, and in three days her formal bid was at the War Office.
Within a week she had the contract.
I know of a case of the wife of a Colonel at the front, who heard one
day at lunch that the War Office needed 50,000 sacks of flour for the
army at Saloniki. That same day she put the matter before some American
brokers in Paris, who wired to their New York firm and received the
usual American reply: "Am not interested in the French trade now. Will
wait until after the war."
With the utmost difficulty the woman was able to secure 10,000 sacks by
way of Italy and Switzerland. She is not likely to seek American sources
of supply soon again.
An American got a tip one day that a certain contract for machine tools
was available. He had an appointment for lunch, so he said to himself:
"Why hurry? These French people are slow. I'll get busy this afternoon
or to-morrow."
When he went to the establishment in question the next day, he found
that an exquisitely gowned woman had just preceded him; indeed, the
fragrance of the perfume she used still hovered about the outer office.
The man cooled his heels for half an hour when the lovely feminine
vision flashed by him going out. He started to make his selling talk to
the Purchasing Agent, who said, at the first opening:
"I am extremely sorry, Monsieur, but we have just closed the contract
with Madam Blank who left a few moments ago."
The New France has brought forth a New Woman!
Through all the organised approach to Self-Sufficiency and Economic
Rehabilitation, France has not lost sight of her grudge against the
Germans. Indeed, no phase of her business life to-day is more
picturesque than the campaign now in full swing not only against
Teutonic trade, but against any resumption of commercial relation with
the hated enemy across the Rhine. Right here you get a striking
difference between English and French methods. While Britain takes out
some of her enmity against German trade in eloquent conversation, France
has gone about it in a practical way, shot through with all the colour
and imagination that only the French could employ upon such procedure.
Preliminary to this campaign was a characteristic episode. Almost with
the flareup of war, the French mind turned sentimentally to those
fateful early Seventies when Germany in the flush of her great victory
seized the fruits of that triumph. Some of those fruits were embodied
in the famous Treaty of Frankfort in which the Teuton clamped the mailed
fist down on every favoured French trade relation.
The war automatically annulled this treaty, and although the nation was
in the first throes of a struggle that threatened existence, it
celebrated the revocation in characteristic fashion. Millions of copies
of the Frankfort Treaty were printed and sold on the streets of Paris
and elsewhere. The excited Frenchman rushed up and down brandishing his
copy and saying: "Now we will ram this treaty down the throat of the
Boche!"
This emotional prelude was now followed by a definite crusade for the
elimination of German goods. Anti-German societies were formed all over
the country. Backing these up are dozens of other formidable
organisations, such as Chambers of Commerce and Business Clubs. Typical
of the campaign is the formation of a Buyers' League which is intended
to assemble all persons who will take a resolution never to buy a German
product and be satisfied for the remainder of their lives with the
French manufactured article.
Wherever you go in France, you find some concrete and striking evidence
of the Anti-German wave. When you get a bundle from a Paris shop, you
are likely to find stuck on it a brilliantly coloured stamp showing a
pair of bloody hands holding a number of packages, the largest one
labeled "made in Germany." Under it is the sentence in French reading:
"Frenchmen, do not buy German products. The hands that made are reddened
with the blood of our soldiers."
There is great variety in these stamps, which are used on letters and
packages. One of the most popular shows a helmeted German with a brutal
face holding a smiling mask before his visage. In one hand he holds a
bundle marked "Made in Germany." On this stamp is the inscription:
"Mistrust their smiles--in every German there is a spy."
Still another and equally popular stamp pictures a soldier with bandaged
head standing by a prostrate comrade and pointing to a fleeing German.
The inscription reads: "We chase the Germans during the war. You,
civilians, will you allow them to return after peace?"
One stamp used much throughout the Provincial French cities shows a
woman in deep mourning weeping over a grave marked with a cross
surmounted by a red soldier cap. The woman is supposed to be saying
these words: "French people, buy no more German products. Remember this
grave."
A companion stamp shows a figure representing the French Republic and
holding the tri-colour. The flag is attached to a spear with which she
is piercing the breast of a German eagle on the ground. At her side is
the national bird of France, the Cock, crowing triumphantly. Underneath
are the words: "Refuse all German products."
Similar in idea is another dramatic conception showing a white robed
female figure holding a battle axe in one hand and pointing with the
other to a burning cathedral. Her words are: "Frenchmen, do not consume
any German products. Remember 1914."
Most of the large French cities have their own Anti-German stamps which
are enlarged and used on billboards as posters. A typical city stamp is
that of Lyon, which shows a Cock in brilliant colours standing proudly
in the red and blue rays of a white sun. Attached is the legend:
"National League of Defence of French Interests--The Anti-German League:
Buy French Products."
The City of Marseilles has a stamp showing the French Cock standing on a
German helmet surrounded by the words "Anti-German League." Elsewhere on
the stamp is the inscription: "No more of the people--No more German
products."
Whether the Frenchman buys or sells, he has poked under his nose or
flaunted before his eyes every hour of the business day some concrete
evidence that his country has put the German people and their products
under the ban.
In connection with this campaign are some facts of utmost significance
to the American business man who has studied the intent and purpose of
the Paris Economic Pact which is described in a previous chapter, and
which declared for an Allied war of economic reprisal against Germany
and the other Central Powers. In that chapter, as you may recall, the
point was made that since individuals and not nations do business, the
Pact was likely to fail.
With their usual intelligence, the French understand this, and their
whole educational campaign at home is to make the individual Frenchman
immune against the lure of the cheap German products. The French know
that it is the sum of individual French resistance to German buying that
will keep the German product forever outside the realm of the Republic.
Indeed, the clearest-minded men in France to-day believe that more
commercial advantage will accrue to France by the intensive development
of her resources, the perfection of old industries and the creation of
new ones than in the formation of committees devoted to plans for
commercial alliances dedicated to reprisal. In other words, this helps
to bear out the theory held in many quarters that the economic pact is
after all merely a campaign document and utterly impracticable.
In France there are other signs that point to a rift in the Pact. While
I was in Paris, a well known Senator pointed out that as soon as the
war ended France would need coal and would look to Italy for it as she
had done in the past. To obtain her coal more cheaply than she is now
doing from the United States or England, Italy would very likely make
concessions to Germany in order to obtain German fuel. The result would
be an interchange of merchandise between the two countries regardless of
the decree of the Paris Pact. The question arises: Could France place
restrictions upon the Italian frontier to the annoyance of her Allies?
Meanwhile France is seeking immunity from any future coal crisis by
developing a system of hydraulic power which will not only be
economical, but will also help to cut down her imports. It is just one
more phase of the ever-widening programme of Self-Sufficiency.
Despite our past blunders, our present lack of organised initiative, and
the efforts toward Self-Supply, the future holds a large business
opportunity for America in France. As a matter of fact, half of the
selling work is already registered because the French are eager and
anxious to do business with their great sister democracy across the
sea. It is, therefore, up to the American exporter to capitalise the
needs of the nation and the good will that it bears toward us. But it
must be done now.
For one thing, it cannot be achieved without constructive co-operative
work. Groups of exporters must organise and establish offices in Paris
and elsewhere in France. The reason for this is that the Frenchman
abhors the fly-by-night salesman: he likes to feel that the man with
whom he is trading has taken some sort of root in his midst.
With organisation must come knowledge. Why did the Germans succeed so
amazingly in France? Geographical proximity and the Frankfort Treaty
helped some, but the principal selling power he wielded was that he
lived with his clients, found out what they wanted, and gave it to them.
If a French farmer, for example, wanted a purple plough share fastened
to a yellow body, the German assumed that he knew what he wanted and
made it for him. The average American exporter, on the other hand, has
always assumed that the foreign customer had to take what was given to
him. For this reason we have failed in South America and for this
reason we will fail in France unless we change our methods. Knowledge is
selling power.
We must be prepared to give the French long credits, and if necessary,
finance French enterprises. Despite her immense gold hoardings, she may
feel an economic pinch after the war. We must also have sound and
organised French credit information.
Our salesmen must know the French language and sympathise with the
French temperament. Give the French buyer a ghost of a chance and he
will meet you more than half way. Unlike the stolid Englishman he is
plastic, adaptable and imaginative. Understanding is a large part of the
trade battle.
We must accumulate large stocks of American goods in France to indulge
the purchaser in his favourite occupation of long and elaborate choosing
and to meet demands for renewal. To ship these goods we must have our
own bottoms. Here, as elsewhere in the whole export outlook, is the old
need of a merchant marine.
But we will never realise our trade destiny in France without
reciprocity. We cannot sell without buying. France looks to us to take
part of the huge flood of goods that once went to Germany. We take some
of her wine: we must take more. We buy her silks and frocks: the
American market for them must now be widened. We depended upon Germany
for many of our toys: France expects the Anglo-Saxon nursery henceforth
to rattle with the mechanical devices which will provide meat and drink
for her maimed soldiers. And so on down a long list of commodities.
All this means that before the mood cools we must conclude new
commercial treaties with France and assure for ourselves a really
favoured nation relation that carries the guarantee of a permanent
foreign trade now so necessary to our permanent prosperity.
In the last analysis you will find that it is France and not England to
whom we must look for the larger commercial kinship after the war. The
spirit of the awakened Britain, so far as we are concerned, is the
spirit of militant trade conquest: the dominant desire of the speeded-up
France is benevolent Self-Sufficiency.
Whether England realises her vast dream remains to be seen. But one
thing is certain: No man can watch France in the supreme Test of War
without catching the thrill of her heroic endeavour, or feeling the
influence of that immense and unconquerable serenity with which she has
faced Triumph and Disaster. They proclaim the deathlessness of her
democracy, the hope of a new world leadership in art and craft.
She will be a worthy trade ally.
V--_Saving for Victory_
By making patriotism profitable, England has enlisted an Army of Savers
and launched the greatest of all Campaigns of Conservation. No contrast
in the greatest of all conflicts is so marked as this flowering of
thrift amid the ruins of a mighty extravagance. The story of Britain's
"Economy First" campaign is a chapter of regeneration through
destruction that is full of interest and significance for every man,
woman, and child in the United States. Through self-denial a complete
revolution in national habits has begun. Out of colossal evil has come
some good.
It has taken a desperate disease to invoke a desperate remedy. The
average American, firm in his belief that he holds a monopoly on world
waste, has had, almost without his knowledge, a formidable rival in
England these past years. Whether the visiting Yankee tourist helped to
set the pace or not, the fact remains that when the war broke over
England she was as extravagant as she was unprepared.
The Englishman, like his American brother, though unlike the Scotch, is
not thrifty by instinct. He regards thrift as a vice. He prefers to let
the tax gatherer do his saving for him. He believes with his great
compatriot Gladstone that "it is more difficult to save a shilling than
to spend a million."
Contrasting the Englishman and the Frenchman in the matter of economy,
you find this interesting parallel: With the Frenchman the first
question that attends income is "How much can I _save_?" Saving is the
supreme thing. With the Briton, however, it becomes a matter of "How
much can I _spend_?" Saving is incidental.
To associate thrift with the British workingman is to conceive a
miracle. To be sure, he seldom had anything to save before the war. But
with the speeding-up of industry to meet the insatiate hunger for
munitions and the corresponding increase of from thirty to fifty per
cent, even more, in wages, he suddenly began to revel in a wealth that
he never dreamed was possible. The more he made the more he spent. He
squandered his financial substance on fine cigars, expensive clothes,
and excessive drinks, while his wife bedecked herself in gaudy finery
and installed pianos or phonographs in her house. No one thought of
To-morrow.
Just as it took the shock of a long succession of military reverses to
rouse the English mind to the consciousness that the war would be long
and bitter, so did the abuse of all this temporary and inflated war time
prosperity bring to far-seeing men throughout England the realisation
that the British people, and more especially those who worked with their
hands, were booked for serious social and economic trouble when peace
came, unless they saw the error of their wasteful ways.
"What can we do to stem this tide of extravagance and at the same time
plant the seed of permanent thrift," asked these men who ranged from
Premier to Prelate. No one knew better than they the difficulties of the
task before them. In England, as in America, thrift is more regarded as
a vice than a virtue. Like the taste for olives it is an acquired
thing. To spend, not to save, is the instinct of the race.
But there were other and equally serious reasons why all England should
buck up financially and make every penny do more than its duty. First
and foremost was the terrific cost of the war that every day took its
toll of $25,000,000; second was the enormous increase in imports and the
diminished flow of exports, a reversal of pre-war conditions that meant
that England each day was buying $5,000,000 worth of goods more than
other countries were purchasing from her; third was the human shrinkage
due to the incessant demand of battlefield and factory. Everywhere was
colossal expenditure of men and money: nowhere existed check or
restraint. Something had to be done.
It was generally admitted that the first thing for everybody to do was
to spend less on themselves than in times of peace. When, where and how
to save became the great question. To save money at the cost of
efficiency for essential and urgent work was not true economy. "But,"
said the thrift promoters, "waste is possible even in the process of
attaining efficiency. For example, people may eat too much as well as
too little, they may buy more clothes than they actually need, ride when
they could walk, employ a servant when they could do their own work, use
their motors when they could travel in a tram."
Thus every class came within the range of the lightning that was about
to strike at the root of an ancient evil.
The start was interesting. Before the war was a year old definite order
emerged of what was at the beginning a scattered protest against
reckless spending. But long before the first organised message of saving
went to the home and purse of the worker, the rich began to economise.
Here is where you encounter the first of the many ironies and contrasts
that mark this whole campaign. The people who could most afford to be
extravagant were the first to draw in their horns. This, of course, was
not particularly surprising because the rich are naturally thrifty. It
is one reason why they get and stay rich.
Among the pioneer organisations was the Women's War Economy League
founded and developed by a group of titled women who got hundreds of
their sisters to pledge themselves to give up unnecessary entertaining,
not to employ men servants unless ineligible for military service, to
buy no new motor cars and use their old ones for public or charitable
work, to buy as few expensive articles of clothing as possible, to
reduce in every way their expenditures on imported goods, and to limit
the buying of everything that came under the category of luxuries.
Champagne was banned from the dinner table, décolleté gowns disappeared:
men substituted black for white waistcoats in the evening.
The rich really needed no organised stimulus to retrench. The great
target for attack was the mass of the population who did not know what
it meant to save and who required just the sort of constructive lesson
that an organised thrift movement could teach.
Much of the increase in wages among the workers was going for food and
drink. Hence the opening assault was made on the market bill.
Fortunately, an agency was already in operation. At the outbreak of the
war a National Food Fund was started to feed the hungry Belgians. That
work had become more or less automatic (the Belgians' appetite is a
pretty regular clock), so its machinery was now trained to the twin
conservation of British stomachs and savings.
"Save the Food of the Nation," was the appeal that went forth on every
side. "No One is too Rich or Poor to Help. Every man, woman and child in
the country who wants to serve the state and help win the war can do so
by giving thought to the question of conserving food. Since the great
bulk of our food comes from abroad, it takes toll in men, ships and
money. Every scrap of food wasted means a dead loss to the Nation in
men, ships and money. If all the food that is now being wasted could be
saved and properly used it would spare more money, more ships, more men
for the National defence."
Now began a notable campaign of education which was carried straight
into the kitchen. Food demonstrators whose work ranged from showing the
economy of cooking potatoes in their skins to making fire-less cookers
out of a soap box and a bundle of straw, went up and down the Kingdom
holding classes. In town halls, schools, village centres and
drawing-rooms, mistress and maid sat side by side. "Waste nothing," was
the new watchword.
Backing up the uttered word was a perfect deluge of literature that
included "Hand Books for House Wives," "Notes on Cooking," "Hints for
Saving Fuel," "Economy in Food," in fact, dozens of pamphlets all
showing how to make one scrap of food or a single stick of wood do the
work of two.
The people behind this movement knew that with waste of food was the
kindred waste of money. They realised, too, that even the most effective
preachment for food economy must inevitably be met by the cry,
"Everybody must eat." With money, on the other hand, there seemed a
better opportunity to drive home a permanent thrift lesson. So the
forces that had built the bulwark around the English stomach now set to
work to rear a rampart about the English pocketbook.