CO129-470 - Public Offices - 1921 — Page 636

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67TH CONGRESS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

1st Session.

REPORT No. 13.

87TH CONGRESS, H. R. 4810.

L&T SEARION.

to promote trade in China. To authorize the incorporation of companies

AN ACT

mittee on the Judiciary. APRIL 28, 1921.-Read twice and referred to the Com-

INCORPORATION OF COMPANIES TO PROMOTE TRADE IN CHINA.

APRIL 22, 1921.--Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed.

Mr. DYER, from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the following

REPORT.

[To socompany H. R. 4810.]

The Committee on the Judiciary, having had under consideration the bill (H. R. 4810) to authorize the incorporation of companies to promote trade in China, report the same back with the recommenda- lion that the bill do pass.

The purpose of this legislation is to give needed urgent relief to American merchants engaged in the development of American foreign trade with the Republic of China. Before the European War there were only three or four important. American firms located in China and our percentage of China's foreign trade amounted to but 6 per cent, the balance going to Great Britain, Germany, France, and Japan, with small amounts to various other countries.

Under the stimulus of the war and also due to the fact that Euro- pean markets were closed, American merchants were able to gain a substantial foothold in the foreign commerce of Chine, our percent- age at the present time being about 17 per cent or $287,000,000 for the year 1919. The number of American firms interested in China, as indicated in the membership of the American Chamber of Com- merce of China at Shanghai, have increased from 48 in 1915 to 313 in 1920.

The great majority of these companies are small firms who repre- sent manufacturers in the United States and they are pushing the sale of American products such as machinery, hardware, cotton and cotton manufactures, food products, motor cars, typewriters and office supplies, wearing apparel such as shoes, underwear, hosiery, shirts and collars and clothing materials, paint and varnish, building equipment such as lumber and nails, electrical equipment, locomo- tives and freight cars, general railroad equipment such as rails,