COMPETITIVE CONDITIONS IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 59

Neither manufacturers nor exporters are, as a rule, in a position
to carry large and long credits. They do not want their money out
at interest; they want to turn it over. If they are to grant long
credits they must get bankers to carry them. The most satisfactory
way to do this is by discounting some form of customers’ paper; and
this is not readily done except through banking connections between
the exporting and the importing countries.
English banks have followed English traders. Without any prearranged
 plan or policy, they have arisen and developed as the spread
of commerce has offered opportunities for profit. They have allowed
the credits which custom and the conditions have demanded.
In the German campaign for foreign trade, liberal credits have
been a prominent feature. Thus, in an article on Argentine conditions,
 published in November, 1914, it is said that increasing the
length of credits has been developed as a means of competition, in
which Germany is reported to have been the most aggressive.
A report of the Department of Commerce states:
The newest comer in the foreign banking field in Rio de Janeiro is
the Banco Aleman Transatlantico, which opened a branch three
years ago, in charge of a German who had previously been a merchant
 in Rio de Janeiro. This bank energetically sought business,
solicited accounts, and extended a greater measure of accommodation
to merchants of Rio de Janeiro than they had been able to obtain
from the British banks.?
The Japan Financial &amp; Economic Monthly for October, 1914,
gave the opinion of a British commercial attaché, to the effect that
the German Empire’s large share of the Japan-China trade was
almost entirely due to excessive credits, and although (presumably
under ordinary circumstances) he would not consider such a course
desirable, it might be necessary for British interests to extend credit.
In this connection Herr von Jagow, German secretary for foreign
affairs, was said to have intimated officially during 1914 that it
was the German Government's intention to assist in financing the
commercial development of China, and that, besides the Deutsch-Asiatische
 Bank, a second German industrial bank was then being
planned which would provide additional financial assistance for
far-reaching activity in China.
Even in Europe the same effects of credit facilities are observed;
witness the following from Spain:
One cause of the success of German exporters has been the fact
that there is in Madrid a German bank that discounts 1reely commercial
 paper sent to it by German exporters; such exporters, there-1R.

 O. Bailey, in The Americas, New York, November, 1914, pp. 16-17.
8 Hurley, op. cit.,, p. 47.