THE HONGKONG. TELEGRAPH, THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 1949.
ROXY HOW ARE BRITISH GOODS
Town booking offico: 8 Queen's Rd., C.
HONGKONG FURNITURE SHOP Service Hours: 12.30-5.30 P.M. Except Sundays
-TO-DAY.
THE
WALLS OP JERICHO
¡Dave!
ZESHOWS
DAILY..+
AT..30, 5.30, 7.30
& 9.30 P.M.
A famed best-soller speaks the heart of a lown that couldn') hold their kind of lovel
\
CORNEL
WILDE
LINDA
DARNELL
ANNE
-BAXTER
KIRK
DOUGLAS
THE
Algorio
Jucker
WALLS OF JERICHO
ANN DVORAK MARJORIE RAMBEAU HENRY HULL COLLEEN TOWNSEND
BARTON MECLANE GRIFF BARNETT • WILLIAM TRACY - ART BAKER -
Directed by JOHN M. STAHL Produced by LAMAR TROTTI Screen Play by Lemor Tron) • Baied on the Novel by Paul Wellmon
SHOWING
Queen's
TO-DAY
BULLETS: WOMEN;
CAN'T HOLD A MAN
ASE LIKE THISU
· SMALL-
RAWS
-ADDED!
O'KEEFE
CENTURY-TOM
At 2.30, 5.15.
7.20 & 9.30 P.M.
DEAL
THIS MODERN AGE SERIES
"HOMES FOR ALL”
ALHAMBRACINTHEATRE
TO-DAY ONLY AT 2.30, 5.15, 7.20 & 9.30 P.M.
Hal Roach
presents
THORNE (Toppor) SMITH'S HILARIOUS NOVEL
TURNABOUT
®
H
SELLING IN AMERICA?
American market? Hero Pre some of the reasons:
New York. the amount if we could have ing-in" period at in the curse Irial linens are booming, be- Why have we made so little of so much British footwear. cause prices have been slashed. real, hard-cash headway on the TOW are British goods supplied 'll.
doing in America? In 1948 we sold the Ameri- There is also a little itera We could sell a lot more care Wonderfully well, if cons 11,000,000 square yards of called chamois leather. Onco if we could get the price down
The American upon a time. we exported hard- and keep the quality up. you look at it from the view- cotton textlies.
production, was 10,272,000,000 ly any to America. But
In steel and engineering the point of a manufacturer
square yards. Our sales, there we know more about chainois I have a friend who owns a Americans have not been used to serving half a dozen fore, were 0.11 percent of their leather than any
nation on Bulck convertible. with every retail outlets scattered about production. In this fold the earth, and produce it better, electric gadget, automatic top seriously threatened by foreign many years, Cornwall. Quite moderately 10,000,000 square yards-appro ing well.
exported It is selling here now, and sell- and all the rest. He would like competition for
a Jaguar. But the price Is They are safe within their well-to someone necustom ximately 85 times the quantity
almost three times that of the castle. Bulck, one of America's better- ed-to shipping into the big they bought from Britala.
customer class cars. There's a markets of Lancashire and
waiting there if the price can Yorkshire, Glasgow and
be brought down. Birmingham,
not
But the American manufac- turer
merchant (who thinks in terms 50
that eves to mention them to most Britons
ly to risk being accused of having follen A victim ballyhon la not Irt the lens! worried by the threat of British competition on his home ground, The truth is, and the Americans know it, we have not yet even started to scratch the surince of this market,
I have been talking to half a slozen of the men now theking
the job of putting our goods on the dollar map.
They differ sometimes in de- tall on the best means of duing particular job. But on two points they are agreed.
Two Points
THE Arst is that their difficul- tles are not here, but in England; the goods will sell themselves if only manufac turers will make them right and get them here on me,
to
The second and this. they ogree, is their chief problem-is make the average British business man adjust his mind to a market so huge and rich that its potentialities are quile outside
anything he has experiented before.
50
"The ordinary British manu- facturer," one of these men told me, "thinks he knows all about because the American market he has met half o dozen Gls. pictures been some Hollywood and read some Board of Trade reports.
"He is willing to study the French market because, the lan- accepts guage is different. He
Cochin-China. that it is hot in
knows thinks he But he America without further effort."
il
Other experts confirmed this. Bigness, one of them put it, is relative. To a man with total sales af 10,000 pairs of shoes a single order for 5,000 from the USA is wonderful. But he can- resents not belleve it-rather it, in fact-when the American firm starts clamouring for couple of hundred thousand by the next boat.
In facts.
the Consider the first part of 1948 half our tolal exports to the US. market of of £30,000,000 (not inclusive partly-worked-gold) was made up of only seven items. These were spirits, motor cars, wool trac- piece goods, agricultural tors, linen manufactures, cotton piece goods and raw wool.
In 1948 we exported to the
Americans 24.475 passenger motor cars. Very good, you say? So do the men who built and exported them, naturally. But put the figures in proper perspective.
WH
Less Than 1%
were exporting WHILE we
Those 24,475 cars to the U.S. the Americans themselves were building 3,012,000 ears,
Add the number of motor lorries built here, and American production was 5,270,000 motor vehicles, of which our awn sales to them would be 0.1 per- cent.
Significantly, the
Americans
Americans that year
America's thirst is well known. How Is she assuaging
that?
Here the dismal tale -con- nues: dribbles of Scotch Into market thai could absorb our whole output and still stay sober.
Jn 1046. British exports of spirits to the United States were Trade sted by the Board of in London as 4,700,00G proof gallons, American output in the same year was 200,000,000 proof gallons.
American
consumption
In
1940 was around 150,000,000 proof gallons.
onie
"These Agures, for various reasons, cannot be exact,"
experts told me, of our trade "but publish them in London, for they give an order of mag- nitude,
evident that out sntes were certainly less than 2 percent of their total output, They are now probably around
percent of their actual sumption,"
con-
No British ċzport-not d gle one-forms more than a tiny fraction, generally less than 1 percent of American consump tion,
What is holding back dollar carnings?
Are Americans worried a b'out competition? Why are selling chances missed?
A Report From FREDERICK
COOK.
A
The biggest selling motor car on earth is the Chevrolet. Every Chevrolet carries a tool-kit. And into every tool-kit in every Chevrolet nowadays is going o British-made chamola leather.
This single in- dustry is going to yield us $5,- 600,000 a year it lenst from. now on. Into Chevro- tet cars alone wo are putting soṛte hundreds a day. My wife put an onler in for n Staffordshire- made ment dish Just four and a alf years ago. We have not got
yel. We have Rot tenctips and Saucers, cream Jug, meat plates coffee cups and themi-tasse cups. But no dish. Only
The price problem is
Metata and metal products (which are now almost half of our total exports) were in pre-
"I don't like to soundt suspicious, sir, but this is. the third time this week you've got yourself lost?".
London Express Service.
.!
enny. In the first ten inonths war days a negligible factor in £7 A WEEK
625
wisrg ifat
Scotch fill the New York, atores-but tha Americans are still thirsty.
promises.
is getting desperate,
The man who took the order "I'm ter- ribly sorry," is all he can say now. "They keep promising to send them. But they just don't come. What can I do?"
1 asked Mr Neville Blonde British trade adviser here, just what the man could do, He
did not know.
Our exports to the USA. Even now, apart from motor cars and tractora, the total is only a few million pounds a year.
FOR MEN
There are other products like IN BRITAIN
coal and chemienls which Wa
ship aversens in quently that we hardly send here at all.
Though oluvlously there is no
By TREVOR EVANS
American market for our coal, BRITAIN has become
the potentialities in
chemicals
22.
£7-a-week land for men
are very great. The range of in industry. products for which there is a
well established market in
For the average wage of traditional
October was 26- America is narrow, men lat largely confined to consumer 17s. 11d., the Ministry of Foods like textiles, liquor, pot-Labour has announced. And it can be assumed that this rate has now risen by ds. 9d. a week-the average half- yearly increase since the
tery.
We must widen that range wo seriously want dollars. It
of 1948, we had to pay about 11 imports percent more for our than we had expected, because of the general rise In prices. Our general export prices that can be done, year were 6 percent higher.
Same Report
war.
Men's wages have doubled since 1938.
That will not do. Whatever raw materials cos! us, some Why
must be found (I hope the TUC is listening) to bring our DEPARTMENT stores all over
The Ministry probed the eara prices on this market nearer to
the country make the samelings of 6 million workers, and the level of American domestic report. The relatively irivial found the average to be £5 17s. goods. It is worth doing. For quantities of British goods they 4. a week. The average for "This," he said, just we still sell only a minute trae- can get are usually put on sale women only was £3 14s, Od. another illustration of what we
tion of the goods of vorious in conjunction with an adver- are up against in our hunt for kinds that Americans use every dollars. The dollars are here for year. the taking. We've simply to get the stuff
In this onc Acid alone--English china- we could sell with
six
over.
case
Kot
Not Enough
tising campaign.
Of special interest. Is the average rise of 3s. 11d. in men's "They're always sold before packels between April and
the lunch," say
storekeepers | October-after the "wailo freeze** "They're useful as a sort of polley was introduced. come-on. They bring the people
The highest-paid men workers: times the amount we're actual IT is starting but true, that in in droves. But it's only the ly selling today."
if you could increase our ex- early ones who manage to get are in the motor car industry. ports to the USA by one-tenth any of the British merchandise. They average £8 85. 4d.
current Why can't you send us more?" lowest paid are in linen and soft of one percent of the
Here is another brand new hemp: £5 (s. 9d. American national income we
British would almost double them.
postwar market for
The
arc
Now is the time when the flood of visiting British business
The best - pald women men reaches its crest. Between now and the end of June they
If we could get but a fraction goods. Thirty thousand of our will be coming over by the more of the money Americans Town-mowers are on sale in the clipples, averaging £6 39. 78... shiplond. Here Is some
advice spend every year, we could Chicago area where none were but women in the water-supply service make do with £2 10s. 7d. for them
without sold at all in the old days. (it is not mine; even conceivably do
It
all The average Increase in comes from the consular and the Marshall Plan or any other
Americans can fake their wages since 1938 is 120 percent.; trade offelals who are here for form
well intentioned of
pick of motor mowers, electric girls' have gone up 167 percent.. the specific purpose of helping charity.
percent, youths' everybody women's 129 them).
Our exports to the United or petrol. But not
125 percent, States have risen by 15 percent can afford £10 to £100 for
motor mower.
The four most important. In- One enterprising "Your chances of selling your in the past year. This te ch- No wonder the United States
dustries not covered by this. British firm stepped in with a goods on the American market couraging, but it is not enough. pusher mower that sells at only survey ате agriculture, coal- is not worried about British
good. They have never
greatest danger of the
£1 17 Gd. Chicago is clamour-mining, railway service, and the. competition. It should be pos sible to multiply
moment is
docks. exports exporis been better-provided you
you will stick at around their pre- ing for more. without get the goods here when here many times over
But two are above average, scut level. Even counting the As they shout on the Western two below, and so they do not causing the slightest headache say you will.
Increase, they are still only 4.3 farmlands nt lunch-time: affect the Ministry's average 10 American Industry. The hard,
percent of our total exports, Come and get "
figure. fact is that British exports have made comparatively little head-
compared with 5.1 percent
way as
yet in the market.
Our
American
arc
Right Factors
can
THE time has long since gume when a made in England label would sell your goods for the you here. But it is stil o tremendous-help-if-other-factors- are right.
Many of our manufacturers have been afraid to enter American market because they fear rapid changes in demand the and sleep tarif increases moment competition becomes acute.
"Don't run away with the idea that to sell in Amerien you have to spend millions in adver- As for tariffs, there is nothing ising and publicity. In fact,
spend a But you need not can do about them, many people attribute a change. Make the goods right, what the ableness to the American which Americans want, not what you be does not in fact have.
we
Your normal Americun cus- tomer is, in fact, more conser- vative than he himself oflen realises. Sell him an article of supreme quality, at a prica ho can pay, and you have a CUS tomer for life.
charges
New Markets
dollar.
The
1947.
that our
in
(London Express Servico)
-(London Express Service)
BERLINERS ARE LIVING
ON AN ISLAND
BERLIN. want, O the Berliner living in imagine they ought to T and they will do the promotion. the Allied sector today
"An American does not buy a life must appear much as it car to hand on to his grandsen.did to the Londoner in 1941, He does not expect a suit to last
He feels himself to be on an four years, British, he wants it good.
cater to
same At the
time
he 15
dows, life is nct really Só wonderful for the British families living here,
Most of
pleasant
the families have The back of the hotel I am
houses, just outside staying in, one of the few build- ings left intact, in this part of Berlin, good servants, adequate Berlin, overlooks a block of it uninteresting food (no tresn
milk, no fresh vegetables fruit,
Irle), German flats.
only Out of 50 windows not one Americans do
or
The
botler on
the js whole; most are patched food because they have fresn
every day. But
there the comfort ends.
For the unmarried man and wamen, living in billets and eating in messes and cluby (oh, They have no heating, of the terrible bright boredom of
this those clubs), life is very much
course;
по hot
water;
By
of
LUCY MILLER
of half what it was during the war; a: coal was life of routine, impersonal,
they ultimately deadening.
п
But when he buys island, in this case an artiñent with wood, cardboard or even acroplane-loads nown in from.
one caused by the blockade; ne paper. Where the whole Win- Denmark
in permanent crisis, dow has been blown out, the "1e wants his friends to lean lives over at a cocktail party and with the Russian-Allied situ tenants have to keep the dark shuitors permanently This is the only major market anger his lapel and say 'Nlection ready to explode under his wooden on earth where there is no such bit of cloth, mi. Is It British feet at any moment; he is tired shut. Our
of his time is exports to them were thing as an import licence. You He will admit it with pride.
because much spent in the hideously irritating thus only 0.0 percent of their
can send in anything, provided
mitst total production.
"You you pay the landing
that struggle to get enough food and and. It is not considered a dan pride, Never, never, com- warmth to keep alive ger to health. This is factor promise with quality. which must be kept in mind In.
"This is especially true just curiously proud to be in Berlin, winter's allowance estimating the possibilitles for
now. There were shortages last proud to be living in a kind of hundredweight new sales here.
Anything year.
would sell front line, and he feels superior Anished long ago, All
Western to the people in not now,
can hope for now is then. But
There is not much real con- Germany.
occasional lot of soft eon fact between the British "The buyer's market is back.
the black b that same period themselves
mariret the Germans. British But if your goods are exported 214,000 passenger cars
But no one can live at a per- bought on the
is velual boiling point: the natural for £1 a hundredweight.
Moving price
in around and 110,000 trucks-another in-
NEW sales are being mude., quality and
Electricity comes on for we western sector of Berlin the teresting comparison with
Markels have been created right-they will still sell them- escapist reaction sets in,
hours in the 24; the two-hour cannot avoid an overwhelming trifling 24,475 bought from us.
where they did, not exist be selves without any effort from
For instance. at least half a In wool textiles, always
fore. And there are others wait- you."
dozen new pocket-size maga- period changes every day: ant sence of frustration:
.announced RE No. big Improvements can bo Important market here
for Ing for men of enterprise.
the blockade sprung up in the sometimes is In cotton goods, the triple zines have Britain, we shipped to the
lusta: nothing is being menderi, 1048 Americans in
7,000,000
They Some of the new arrivals are; problems of price, quality and last year, and all have a large from two or four in the early hoped for while
publish morning.
nothing rebuilt. The men “and. of wool and British wallpapers, British delivery-on-tims are of growing circulation.
crossword serials, square yards WINNER OF 3 ACADEMY AWARDS!
puzzles, Then If you are awake you women working on the rubble worsted tissues.
shoes, British toys, British sur- importance.
cynical jokes about their own
may hear alarm clocks going are only doing so because their America's own production was gical instruments and surgical
off as the housewives get up to ordinary joba have folded British biscuita and British leather manufacturers misfortunes. estimated at 850,000,000 square
were just es new
Theatres, cinemas, the opera; do their Ironing and cooking through lack of fuel. At the yards. Our exports
furnishing are losing ground. because their
moment all they can look for thelr 1.1 percent of
made of prices are too high. They must all are .crammed with people for the day.. domestic fabrics, shoe linings
though few can
Is the end of winter. of come down if we are to hold every night, the waste paper, new methods |At 2.30, 5.20, | output. This was not
American's fault. They would lasting for men's and women's what we have, let alone in-put up the notlee, "It is heated 7.20 & 9.20
here." taken at least 10 times shoes, which reduce the "break- P.M.
starring
Carole
Joher
Adolphs MENJOU LANDIS HUBBARD
OPENS
TO-MORROW!
SHOWING
TO-DAY
"THE RED SHOES”.
Color by. Tachnicolor
MAJESTIC
have
an
crease it.
On
"
the other side at the pleture, inside the double win-
ond
this. one
-(London Express Service)
NEXT CHANGE:
Some women born under the Sign of the Ram
follow strange and violent paths to love!
COLUMBIA PICTURE? pressats'
SUSAN PETERS
The Sign Of The Ram
King
ALEXANDER KNOX - PHYLLIS TRAXTER - PERGY ANN GARNER · KON RANWELL - DAME MAY WHITTY - ALLENE ROBERTS
***** Biracial by JOHN STRONGES » Proshowed by WYN & CURRENCI, JE
JHE STING COMMICS PRODUCTOR
Errol -FLYNN
In "CRY WOLF”
-NANCY
Change of Heart
By Erale Bushmiller
bif
INSECT SPRAY
WITH ODT
When there's bif Ineedn't use my fist!
SURE KILL
SOLE AGENTS NAN KANG CO, UNION BODO MA