304 
Modern Business Geography 
World War the United States took a rapidly increasing share of the 
South American trade, because western Europe was so busy with 
war that it had little opportunity to care for the regular trade; but 
since the war we have dropped back to almost our old relative position. 
Advantages of western Europe in the South American market. 
Four conditions make it easy for western Europe, especially Germany 
and Great Britain, to regain most of their trade in South America : 
(1) European residents. There are many European business houses 
and millions of European immigrants in South America, whereas 
there are only a few Americans. Therefore the inhabitants 
much prefer European goods. 
(2) Price competition. Europe is very eager for foreign trade to help 
pay her war debts. Therefore she is willing to sell at a small 
margin of profit. This is particularly true of Germany, which 
almost completely lost its great overseas trade during the 
war. 
3) 
Ignorance of needs of market. Many American business firms 
have not yet learned how to get and keep South American 
trade. They sometimes send catalogues printed in English, 
forward goods in great boxes for places where only pack ani- 
mals are used, or put up goods in packages so frail that many 
are spoiled before they reach their destination. They seem to 
expect that an agent at Rio de Janeiro, for instance, where 
Portuguese is spoken, can take care of buyers at Buenos Aires, 
fourteen hundred miles away, and at Valparaiso, twenty-two 
hundred miles away, where the language is Spanish, — even 
when the agent knows neither Spanish nor Portuguese! Such 
conditions, however, are passing away, and many South Ameri- 
can centers now have American banks and American agents well 
trained in South American languages and customs. 
Distance from American centers. Another reason why the 
United States finds it difficult to hold the trade of some of the 
South American countries is the great distance. By actual 
measurement on a globe, it will be seen that ports south of Cape 
San Roque are nearer to some seaports of western Europe than 
they are to the important ports of the United States. The 
Panama Canal, to be sure, puts the manufacturing region of the 
United States within easy reach of the Pacific countries of 
South America; but the Pacific countries import only one 
fourth as much as the rest of South America. From southern 
Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina, where commercial possibilities 
are greatest, the distance to western Europe and to the United 
States is so nearly equal that Europe’s other advantages are 
likely to cause her.to hold much of the South American 
trade. 
A)