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THE TRADE OF SOUTH CHINA.
THE TRADE OF SOUTH CHINA.
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have given up the task in despair. Chinese methods were not properly understood. The language, the currency, the difficulty in obtaining vouchers and checking publica- tions were all barriers in the way of opening profitable business connections by this means. We have, during the past few years, established cordial relationships with nearly 100 Chinese newspapers. We have a staff of thoroughly efficient translators in our employ. Our agents are con- stantly travelling up and down the provinces. We have properly revised, and thoroughly reliable, lists of the names and addresses of some 50,000 Chinese traders. We can provide exact information regarding the classes among which certain papers circulate and can give accurate data regarding their circalations. We have also made sure that the advertisement charges which we can quote, which vary, of course, very materially in the different journals, are the lowest possible, and considerably below those which any individual advertiser would be called upon to pay.
Our Organisation has been in existence for some time past.
The work which has already been done has simply been spade work. A Bulletin has been issued daily containing all the important cable news from Great Bri- tain, America and Peking and this has been translat- ed and distributed to all the Chinese papers on our lists who have been allowed to publish the cables free of charge. Now the time has come for the extension of our activities which was all the time contemplated. After considerable labour, and the expenditure of no small amount of capital, we have prepared the ground and are ready to help in the trade boom in China for which all countries are stearily making ready.
There is no need now to speak to the trader of the re- sults to be obtained from scientific advertising. It has been developed to a fine art in all western countries aud the thousands of pounds which are annually spent in this form of propaganda by the most successful business houses is ample testimony of its efficacy. Not to advertise simply means gradual extinction; everywhere that is recognised. In China, however, little has been done in this direction except by the British and American Tobacco Company, the great Oil Combines and a few patent medicine com- panies, not because it is thought that the experience of other countries would not apply to China, and that the re- sults would not repay the outlay, but because it has not been possible for the trader to get into sound business relation- ship with the Chinese newspaper proprietor.
We control the only organisation that can provide the facilities required. We shall be prepared to answer any questions that may be put to us, to give quotations for any class of paper, to be responsible for translations, to check all publications and accounts and, in general, to see that advertising appropriations are well spent. Results are bound to follow.
We have the cordial support and co-operation of the General Chamber of Commerce in Hongkong, and the good-will of the Colonial Government and the Board of Trade, and, indeed, of all interested in the extension of sound business in these latitudes. The merchants of China realise that we are meeting a want which has been long felt. There is no question of our bona fi les. A reference China trade We desire
to any well-established house engaged in the will set any doubts at rest under that heading.
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