He answered: “We buy some of it in the United States but most of it in Germany. We prefer that made in North America, but it is so carelessly packed that we always figure on a ten per cent. loss. The German manufacturers carefully surround the rolls with boards to prevent the paper from damage, while the North American paper is simply wrapped with a little heavier paper, which tears or becomes water soaked, and damage results. A short time ago we returned nearly nine hundred bales to the manufacturers because of the damaged condition in which it was received.” [Illustration: ROLLS OF PAPER FROM GERMANY] “How does American machinery sell?” I asked of an importing merchant in Buenos Aires, who represented a few American manufacturers. “Very well indeed, for the people generally like them. But there is one thing your North American manufacturers must learn, and that is to be very careful in putting every necessary part in the shipment. Several times we have received engines, or other complicated machinery, and when it was put together some part would be missing. As it was impossible to get that part in less than three or four months, the customer lost a season’s business, and his friends bought English machinery because there was no danger of that same trouble.” It would be possible to relate numerous other instances of personal experiences, all of which would be of similar tenor to those herewith given. It is humiliating to an American to travel throughout the length and breadth of South America and see the trade which legitimately belongs to us slipping away to Europe, when some of our own factories in that line are idle because of lack of orders. It leads one to ask the questions: “What is the matter with the American business man? What is the matter with the American manufacturer?” The South American field is an extensive one, and it is a discriminating one. The idea that anything is good enough for that continent has been exploded. Buenos Aires, for instance, is a live, hustling up-to-date metropolis. The people have money and they spend it freely. What they buy they want of the very best, and nothing is too good for them. It might also be added that nothing is too expensive for them, as they are used to paying high prices, and money seems to be of little moment when once the desire for the article exists. So it is not a cheap or a low-price market that awaits the American merchant.