182 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE,

paratively few of the importing houses are owned by native capital,
and almost none by Americans.
The retail houses, which are supplied with American goods by the
local importing houses and the American exporting houses, are operated
 by native and European capital.
In two of the countries visited—Brazil and Argentina—a number
of American manufacturers have recently established direct agencies
in charge of personal representatives. Their agents sell the goods
to the local firms and generally confine their activities to promoting
their trade through those channels. In a few instances, as in the
case of a large shoe-manufacturing company, manufacturers have
astablished chains of stores for the retailing of their products.
For many years the foreign importing houses and the American
axporting firms have held agencies from American manufacturers,
under the terms of which they were expected to promote the sale of
the lines of goods in the countries for which they held the agency,
and in return were generally allowed control over the sales in their
allotted region. This form of agency must be distinguished from
the agency where the direct representative of the American manu-*acturer,
 working only in the interest of his principal, is considered.
The primary interest of the importing houses and the American
axporter is not the development of the trade of every manufacturer
for whom they hold an agency. The importing houses and, as far
as they do a merchandising business, the American exporting houses
are concerned primarily in buying goods cheaply and reselling them
at a higher price. The commission house is concerned primarily
with the volume of business it’ can transact in all the various lines
handled. In both cases such concerns are primarily interested in
handling only goods which will yield them the largest returns,
capital invested and expense of doing the business taken into account.
To attain their ends successfully, they endeavor to move on lines
of least resistance. If the goods of a particular manufacturer for
whom they hold an agency fail to sell readily after being introduced
to the local trade, or meet with severe competition from similar
goods manufactured by others, there is no particular inducement to
continue the business in that line. Certain classes of American
zoods, particularly the kind known as American “specialties,” are
much in demand and require little pushing. They “sell themselves.”
Also, they are of a character which necessitates a wide distribution
of relatively small quantities to the retail trade. The large importing
 houses and the exporting houses, by virtue of their facilities for
widespread distribution through their markets and their trade in
several different lines of goods to the same retailer, are often the
most suitable channels that can be used by an American manufacturer
 of the kind of goods above described. In point of fact, in