CO129-557-2 British Empire and China Trade Fair 4-3-1936 - 24-6-1936 — Page 22

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market "of 10 million consumers of Western goods," a market which "may be considered as not only possessing sufficient wealth to enable them to purchase all their fancy dictates, but also as being, through travel and through contact with Western people and things, predisposed

Ten million Cantonese towards the use of Western products," sufficiently well-off to buy anything they fancy? Ten million posi- Ten million Chinese the limit tively anxious to buy Western goods? to whose buying "is set solely by the energy and skill of the producer in bringing his products to their notice"? Ten million people with purses and pockets bulging with money, waiting patiently for somebody to come along with something to sell? Or perhaps they are a little impatient, for you say:- "What Young China wants he wants now at once, and so you urge British merchants to be up and doing, and secure their full share of this business before others close the door in their faces. I wish I could bring myself to believe that there are 10 million "Southern Chinese" who are in such affluent circumstances that they are in a position to buy anything their fancy dictates, but once again I am inclined to think you have over-estimated the situation,

and even and that your figures need scaling-down to about one-tenth then you would be well "on the bright side."

And again, when you say that "even among the poorer classes" the demands for infants' foods, food beverages, milk products, patent medicines," is "enormous," that "nothing but the best is good enough" for Chinese children, and that the rest of the family will stint themselves "in order that the children may have the best of strengthen ing foods, medicines, and clothes," I can agree that Chinese parents are generous sometimes to a fault in their solicitude for the young, but I really cannot believe that there is an "enormous" demand among the poorer classes in South China for the expensive things you mention. I know that Canton is going ahead, and having been there thirty-odd years ago I can fully appreciate the changes of the last decade. I know that the "Southern Chinese" are an enterprising, go- ahead people, and that they have the "urge to catch up," but that "the possession of means to satisfy desire" has spread to the