2. Both for the purpose of learning what the South American people want and of securing their attention to your goods, you must have agents who speak the Spanish or Portuguese language. For this there are two reasons: one is that people can seldom really get at each other's minds through an interpreter, and the other is that nine times out of ten it is only through knowing the Spanish or Portuguese language that a North American comes to appreciate the admirable and attractive personal qualities of the South American, and is thus able to establish that kindly and agreeable personal relation which is so potent in leading to business relations. 3. The American producer should arrange to conform his credit system to that prevailing in the country where he wishes to sell goods. There is no more money lost upon commercial credits in South America than there is in North America; but business men there have their own ways of doing business; they have to adapt the credits they receive to the credits they give. It is often inconvenient and disagreeable, and it is sometimes impossible, for them to conform to our ways, and the requirement that they should do so is a serious obstacle to trade. To understand credits it is, of course, necessary to know something about the character, trustworthiness, and commercial standing of the purchaser, and the American producer or merchant who would sell goods in South America must have some means of knowledge upon this subject. This leads naturally to the next observation I have to make. 4. The establishment of banks should be brought about. The Americans already engaged in South American trade could well afford to subscribe the capital and establish an American bank in each of the principal cities of South America. This is a fact, first, because nothing but very bad management could prevent such a bank from making money; capital is much needed in those cities, and six, eight, and ten per cent can be obtained for money upon just as safe security as can be had in Kansas City, St. Louis, or New York. It is a fact also because the American bank would furnish a source of information as to the standing of the South American purchasers to whom credit may be extended, and because American banks would relieve American business in South America from the disadvantage which now exists of making all its financial transactions through Europe instead of directly with the United States. It is unfortunately true that among hundreds of thousands of possible customers the United States now stands in a position of assumed financial and business inferiority to the countries through whose banking houses all its business must be done.