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If a Philadelphia business house were to establish a branch office in San Francisco in order to handle its Massachusetts business, it would be pursuing a more practical and less roundabout way than some American manufacturers trying for new business in various parts of South America, according to the Philadelphia Bourse in its weekly statement on foreign trade, issued yesterday. 

The Bourse states that an increasing number of American houses are opening branch offices in Buenos Aires in order to do business with South American trade centers which are considerably nearer the United States and the home office in point of time than the Argentine capital. 

"South American merchants," it added, "are laughing more derisively at this blunder than would Americans were the inexcusable error to be made in this country? 

"The greatest number of complaints come from Venezuela," the Bourse statement continues. "The American Consulate at La Guaira has recently reported that the number of American firms attempting to handle their business with Venezuelan merchants through Buenos Aires agencies is increasing and that customers are being lost correspondingly and American business men as a whole discredited. 

"The American firms which are extending their business for the first time, although some of the offenders have been in South America for some time, fail to realize that the South American countries bordering on the Caribbean are infinitely nearer to them in the matter of time than Buenos Aires. For instance, a letter may be sent from Caracas, Venezuela, to Philadelphia or New York and a reply received at the former city within 24 days, while if the correspondense is sent from Buenos Aires at least 80, just four times that time, must be allowed. Indeed, a letter may be sent to Europe and a reply received from Caracas in not more than 35 days. 

"The only real advantage the American has over the English and German competitor in South America in normal times is nearness to the market and accessibility. To deliberately remove that advantage and pile up additional handicaps is to throw business away. Furthermore, firms guilty of this shortsight hurt not only themselves, but the prospects of all other American exporters. When a Venezuelan merchant finds that his inquiries have been referred by a home office to the branch at Buenos Aires, in all probability he will drop all negotiations and will exhibit the correspondence to his friends as an illustration of how the average American firm does business. The least a firm can do is try to keep his Venezuelan correspondent ignorant of his roundabout methods. 

Insufficient Postage Decried 

"The practice indulged in by many American houses of sending letters with insufficient postage is not c[[covered]] South America. The Chambe[[covered]] merce of Capetown, South A[[covered]] cently made complaint of [[covered]] South African business men [[covered]] can business letters under 2-ce[[covered]] instead of the necessary 5-cen[[covered]] 'Not only is this causing mu[[covered]] venience to correspondents i[[covered]] Africa,' says the Cape Town [[covered]] cial body, 'but it entails co[[covered]] loss of money to the merch[[covered]] must make good the posta[[covered]] age.'" 

The Bourse censures also the[[covered]] use by Americans of the parce[[covered]] the sending of samples of no c[[covered]] value. 

Transcription Notes:
unsure how to denote bits covered by photo