One reason for our laxity all up and down the French business line is
that the American has never taken the French export business any too
seriously. On the other hand, stern necessity has been the driving force
behind the English and German manufacturer. The American, too, has made
the great mistake of assuming that the foreigner, and especially the
Frenchman, is not always serious-minded and to be depended upon. If he
wants his mind disabused in this matter, let me suggest that he see him
at war. He will realise that the superb spirit of aggression and
organisation that mark him now is bound to last when peace comes.

You must not get the impression from this long list of American business
calamity that all our endeavour has failed in France. Those few great
American corporations who have planted the flag of our commercial
enterprise wherever the trade winds blow, have long and successfully
held up their end throughout the Republic. So, too, with some
individuals. The story of what one New Yorker did is an inspiring and
perhaps helpful lesson in the right way to do business in France.

This man is resolute and resourceful: he speaks French fluently and he
was familiar with the foreign trade field. With the outbreak of war he
did not lose his head and try to get business indiscriminately. Instead,
he made a careful survey of the field; he did not listen to the optimist
who said it would be a short war: his instinct told him, on the
contrary, that it would be a long one. "What will France need more than
anything else?" he asked himself.

He realised that most of all France would need machine tools. He got the
cables busy assembling goods, and by every known route he brought them
to France. When he had a warehouse full of material, he began to sell.
He not only had what the French were hungering for, but he had them to