SPECIAL REPORTS FOR FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION, 137

Constantinople. They exchange financial references more thorough
and intimate than the usual bank ratings and assist well-deserving
importers in the Levant of Austrian or Hungarian products in obtaining
 credit.
Germany.—The greatest results from systematic organization have,
however, been achieved by Germany. The steady increase of German
 commerce with Turkey, effected at a time when Germany’s competitors
 were more popular than the Germans with the native masses,
can not but be ascribed to that model organization which starts at
the home bank furnishing to the small manufacturer capital against
his Turkish customer’s notes, facilitates the shipment of the goods exported
 by land as well as by sea, and supplies through its exterritorial
banks to the Turkish importer the funds necessary for releasing the
merchandise and selling it, thus enabling the latter to honor the
initial notes. The success of the “made in Germany ” goods is thus
due, rather than to excellence of goods or to salesmanship, to this
scientific handling of the financial problem.
In Germany’s commercial dealings with Turkey prominent mention
 must be made of the Deutsche Levante Linie, the stock of which
is held by all important banks in the German Empire. These freighters,
 reputed for efficient service, call at many ports along the Dutch,
Belgian, and Mediterranean coasts and obtain a full cargo on nearly
every voyage. Thus lower freight rates are possible for German
wares. On the State-owned railroads in Germany goods intended
for export enjoy an especially favorable treatment. A system of
through bills of lading has been devised by virtue of which, even
at an interior town in Saxony, one may ascertain the price c. i. f. port
of destination of any quanity of merchandise and ship same at reduced
 rates through the combined facilities of the State railroads
and the Deutsche Levante Linie. German goods enjoy preferential
rights, and American shipments via Hamburg to Constantinople are
known often to have been obliged to wait for weeks in the Hamburg
warehouses on that account.
In a very special way the German Government affords help to
the export trade by the application of “combined uniform rates”
on the railways in combination with the Deutsche Levante Linie.
Thus, a manufacturer of wire in Kénigsberg and a manufacturer of
wire in Hanover will pay the same freight for the transportation
of their goods provided they are destined to be exported to the Levant
via. Hamburg. This boon is a valuable incentive for manufacturers
even in the remotest part of Silesia to look for export customers, as
it puts these manufacturers on an equal footing with their colleagues
in the western section of the Empire. Another important feature of
the system is the organization of the transportation facilities provided.
 In everysmall manufacturing town in Germany, the Deutsche
Levante Linie has an agent who at the same time is insurance agent
and “ Spediteur,” i. e., forwarding agent. He takes the goods from
the factory and attends to the formalities required by all the carriers,
whose authorized representative he is, himself. Only a very small
portion of the exports, some of those from the Rhineland, are sometimes
 advantageously diverted to Antwerp when the Belgian steamers
offer an especially sharp competition. This, however, is only incidental
 and temporary.