It is in the practical and useful things that the genius of the United States has been most manifest. A great undeveloped country rich in natural resources stirred the inventive genius of the people, and the result has been a continual increase in time-saving and labour-saving appliances of all kinds. These same articles are equally adapted to conditions all over South America. In some places these articles are known and appreciated; in others they are still unknown. No manufacturers have evolved farming machinery of all kinds so well adapted to conditions in South America as those of the United States. American manufacturers look with longing eyes towards the Orient as a promising field for expansion. It will be many years before China, for instance, will be a great importer of manufactured goods, because of the extreme poverty of the people and the consequent low purchasing power of the masses. The imports of that country, with its teeming population of four hundred millions, for the past year were about $333,000,000, an average of less than one dollar per capita. It will be many years before that percentage will greatly increase, because the rise in the standard of wages will be very slow owing to the abundance of labourers. Furthermore, as soon as trade has once been established, the low wages will induce manufacturers to establish factories on Chinese soil so that the cost of production will be decreased. Japan is, and will always be, a formidable competitor in the Orient, because of her ingenuity and similarly low wage scale. South America, on the other hand, is not and will not be for a long time, if ever, a manufacturing country. Brazil has encouraged some lines of manufactures, because of her extensive water power, but still is and will ever remain an importing nation. Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay have little available water power and scarcely any coal. Chile, Peru and all the other republics of South America remain importing nations. In none of these countries, except Chile, has coal been found in large quantities, and millions upon millions of tons are imported each year from Europe and Australia. The matter of fuel alone will always deter manufacturing in South America.