COMPETITIVE CONDITIONS IN SOUTH AMERICAN TRADE. 185

methods of certain direct representatives of American manufacturers
doing business in Brazil and Argentina.
At the present time a large proportion of the trade of the foreign
importing houses in South America, in many lines of manufactures,
consists in the distribution of goods of American origin. It can not
be expected, however, that after the war is over such houses will continue
 to handle American goods to the present degree. Those which
for years have made a specialty of American goods, have built up a
large trade, and have established advantageous connections with the
American manufacturers will continue good customers. The other
houses, which have been forced into the distribution of American
goods simply because of the scarcity of similar goods from Europe and
the necessity of holding the trade of their customers and keeping up
the organization of their business, will return to their former sources
of supply. Some such houses are at present being supplied by
American manufacturers with goods made in imitation of the European
 goods formerly handled. The American manufacturer has gone
so far as not only to copy the style, but to use the label “Made in
Germany.” The goods, according to the informants, who claimed to
have personal knowledge of this subject, were of a type which in
ordinary times can be made much cheaper in Europe than in the
United States. It is obvious that such importing houses will not be
‘1 the market for those American goods after the war.

SECTION 7. THE ADVANTAGES OF COOPERATIVE ACTION BY
AMERICAN PRODUCERS IN SOUTH AMERICAN TRADE.

Not only is joint action by American producers, particularly the
smaller concerns, obviously necessary to meet the competition of
European combinations operating in South America, but in some
lines of staples in which there is no such competition the local conditions
 in certain South American markets make some closer form of
cooperative action on the part of American manufacturers necessary
to develop their trade. A good example is furnished by the conditions
 in the marketing of American lumber in the River Plate market,
 i. e., Uruguay and Argentina. An agent of the Bureau of Foreign
and Domestic Commerce, Mr. R. E. Simmons, has recently made a
careful and detailed study of conditions in this market. His statements
 concerning the obstacles which impede the American lumber
trade are fully borne out by information collected by agents of the
Federal Trade Commission. The sale of yellow-pine, spruce, and
white-pine lumber, either manufactured in the United States or
shipped from American ports, though of Canadian origin, is well established
 in the River Plate market. The quantity of lumber entering
this market in 1913 was about 530,000,000 feet, of which about