The United States could and should have a much greater proportion of Chile’s trade. Too many manufacturers depend wholly on business houses conducted by English or German merchants—men who naturally prefer the goods made by their own countrymen. Others send representatives who are illy adapted to deal with Chileans and other Latin Americans. An American bank would work wonders in developing trade. It seems strange that American capitalists hesitate about investing their money in such an institution. Foreign banks established in South America have paid good dividends. Among those in Chile are the Anglo-South American Bank, Bank of London and the River Plate, German Transatlantique and the Banco Italiano. The figures of exports and imports given below are in themselves eloquent testimonials of the value of Chilean trade. Branch houses in charge of hustling Americans, or agencies placed with American importers should be the aim of every manufacturer who intends to push the trade into Chile or any of the other republics of Latin America. At the present time there are very few citizens of the United States resident in Chile—probably less than five hundred in the entire republic. “Why do you not buy your steel work in the United States?” I asked of a wealthy Chilean gentleman who was building a large modern block in Santiago. “I wanted to do so,” he answered, “but your manufacturers would not grant the terms that were gladly and voluntarily offered me in Europe. As a result, I bought all my steel for this building, which will cost more than a half million dollars gold, in Belgium. The only equipment for the building made in the United States will be a half dozen elevators.” This simply illustrates one phase of the shortsightedness of our manufacturers in dealing with South America. The field is a large one, and a discriminating one as well. It is humiliating at times to an American to travel throughout the length and breadth of South America, and see the trade that legitimately belongs to us slipping away to Europe, even when some of our own factories in that particular line are idle because of lack of orders. There has been an awakening in the past few years, but there must still be much progress before the American business man catches up with the British and German in the pursuit of the world’s trade.