with 50 to 58 of molybdenum, are well known for industrial purposes.

MICA

Mica is composed of a group of minerals, some of which have commercial possibilities, and have been much in demand in the markets of the world.

Micas are characterized by a very easy cleavage in one direction and for the great elasticity, flexibility and toughness of the extremely thin flakes. There are various kinds of mica, some of which are quite colorless and transparent, while others are black, green, yellow, brown, red and opaque. The chemical composition of mica is very complex and varied; some have silicates of aluminum in combination with alkalis, while in other magnesia and ferrous and ferric iron are found. Minerals are also frequently found mixed with mica; flattened crystals of

granite, films of quartz and needles of tourmalines are not uncommon.

Extensive deposits of mica have been found in Punachacra, in the province of Camaná, where conditions, both geological and industrial. are favorable for its extraction.

The principal uses of mica are in connection with electrical apparatus as an isolating material since it is a bad conductor of electricity; the smooth flexible sheets are much used in the construction of armatures for dynamos and other electrical machinery. Mica is also largely used as a substitute for glass in stove windows, furnace peep-holes and for lamp chimneys and gas burners, due to its transparency and its resistance to heat and sudden changes of temperature. It is also largely used for decorative purposes, in wall papers, for toys and stage scenery to produce a frosted effect.

R

ECENT press notices from Buenos Aires acquaint us with the fact that the French Military Mission in that city has officially inaugurated an aerial service for passengers between Buenos Aires and Montevideo. It is hoped that the success met with in the first trial flights will help considerably to overcome public nervousness and to dispel preconceived ideas about aviation.

But passenger service to Montevideo is not the only ambition of those aviation enthusiasts, for they have already seen the commercial possibilities of aerial freight transportation over the Argentine pampas and the Brazilian plains. Important plans have already been made for the establishment of aviation service be

tween the cities of Buenos Aires and Pernambuco.

One of the representatives of the Handley-Page British Expedition, interviewed by a representative of a Buenos Aires newspaper, gave interesting information regarding the programme of that company for the development of aviation on the East Coast of South America. According to him this form of transportation has been so perfected of late that it can be used with great facilities and comparatively few risks. To prove this point he quoted a cable received from London stating that nearly four thousand passengers and over sixteen thousand pounds of merchandise had been carried by the Handley-Page machines running be

tween London, Paris and Brussels, without an accident.

Since the end of the war, the British Government found itself the owner of a great number of machines of the latest type and absolutely reliable, for which it had no special need. The Handley-Page Company will act as an agent in the selling of them for the benefit of British trade and there is no reason why Great Britain should not supply South America with material and pilots until those countries have trained their own men for this service.

The Handley-Page Mission in Argentina is well equipped with aeroplanes of various models, hangars, spare parts and all that is necessary to equip and run an up-to-date flying school. It will do to a large extent a work of education, demonstrating the

FIRST DAY

Buenos Aires-Montevideo

Montevideo-Rio Grande

capabilities of the machines until the public gradually gets confidence in their reliability. The local representatives have compiled information of the most interesting nature in regard to the projected service.

The first line to be established would be between Buenos Aires and Montevideo, which distance would be covered in an hour and forty-five minutes at the beginning. Then, as the pilots become acquainted with the geography of the country, and the wind and currents, the service will be established reaching successively Rio Grande, Porto Allegre, Florianópolis, Santos, Rio, etc. They calculate that the total time taken for the journey from Buenos Aires to Pernambuco will be thirty-eight hours, according to the following schedule:

Rio Grande-Porto Alegre

214

N

O sooner was the armistice signed-is it possible that it was over a year ago? than a flood of American commercial men began rushing across the Atlantic intent upon selling to Europe, and particularly to Great Britain, France and Italy, mountains of manufactured goods.

Now, these mountains were and are, it is to be noted, largely composed of the kind of commodities that Europe, in her days of peace, makes for herself, and which in many cases she taught America to make; the United States has, in fact, feared European dexterity of manufacture so greatly in competition with home-made goods that a high and thick tariff wall has been built up against any possible east-to-west tide. Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy ceased to be normal manufacturing nations for five years, and the populations of those countries were checked in ordinary purchases. They did without things. They went without comfortable manufactured goods as they went without food and drink so that their armies might be fed and clothed and accoutred to meet the enemy. Knowing this, the American manufacturer sent out his agents by thousands to try to sell his factory products to war-worn Europe.

RAW AND MANUFACTURED GOODS

This might have been an economically sound movement were it not for one prohibitive fact: the fact that for the same five years the United States had been, and still is, an immense salesman of raw materials and semimanufactured goods. Emphatically, it is not economically sound to try to sell both raw materials, and manufactures, to the same customer at the same time, while maintaining a high tariff wall against his own goods. That is the prime error into which the American exporter has fallen in his haste for sales for cash. He has forgotten that money is only a token, a token for actual goods, and that goods cannot be sent in one direction only. If the United States wants to sell to Europe, purchases of goods must be made from Europe. And, in the present state of the paralysing tariff, this is hardly possible.

ADVERSE EXCHANGE

The uneconomic result of trying to sell raw materials with your right hand and manufactured goods with your left, and meanwhile taking nothing but cash from your customer, is plainly exemplified in the present state of exchange. The English pound sterling should buy four dollars and eighty-six cents in U. S. money: as a

result of adverse trade, for the last few months it has bought less than four dollars, falling sometimes to about three dollars and seventyfive cents. The condition of the franc has been even worse. The fiThe financier who thinks that Wall Street ought to rule the world has rubbed his hands as exchange began to go against Great Britain and France, seeing that this was the result of insisting upon getting all Europe's gold during war stress. Quite a number of persons with Teutonic names found in this fact a consolation for the depreciation of the mark, and showed signs of being just as well pleased with British and French distress as with signs of travail in Russia. The more that lire and francs and pounds sterling fell, the better for transatlantic profiteers, it was supposed.

But presently it was seen, with grief, that European economists were quite wide awake to the trend of events, and that the immediate result of inordinate selling efforts unaccompanied by buying was to render the customer unable as well as unwilling to buy. Cancellations of orders. come in in flocks to awaken the trader to a sense of proportion. There are today signs that a realisation is coming about of the basic fact stated above-you cannot sell both raw and manufactured materials at the same time to the same customer, without taking his goods as return.

THE REMEDY

What, then, is to be done? One remedy suggested is, that as Europe cannot at the moment be squeezed out of more money, immense credits should be opened to the two most potentially wealthy customers, England and France, with payment deferred for a long term of years. But this would only be making conditions. worse at base. The present situation would be disguised, but the effect. would be the same: that the United

States would be selling, not for goods but for cash, and that therefore money would be consistently devalorized. Money is only a token. Paper is a token for gold and gold is a token for goods. And if the goods do not appear, money is little or nothing.

Not only is this suggestion of new credits a bad one economically, but it is recognised as such by Europe. It is not too much to say that by the attempt to impose such a yoke upon the nations which fought the fight of right against the enemy for four years while the United States was engaged in making money, America has seriously risked her reputation. She had, at one time, an excellent chance to carry out loudly-voiced theories of a highly beneficent purpose in the world; but as Europe saw the representatives of the United States at the Peace Table fighting tooth and nail for the German ships to which they were not entitled by sacrifices, when they realised that the United States wanted to dictate to Europe and Asia but frantically rejected any shadow of advice as to her own conduct in the more southerly American regions; when it became clear that she refused to accept responsibilities while claiming privileges; that she alone has held up the Peace Treaty; that she desired to reap, in fact, where she had not sown, a change came about in the feeling of Europe. There is appa

rent at the moment a distinct chill. No amount of words can change this fact. It is plainer in France than in Great Britain, and perhaps is experienced more keenly in Italy than in either of the other two countries. It was an Italian newspaper which said the other day that the "United States. is not content to grind our last lira out of us during the war; she wants to make economic slaves of us now that we have peace."

THE VANISHING CHANCE With broad vision, and a realisation of the other man's point of view,

the United States can save a good deal of her international repute. The matter is not one today of politicians, but of the man in the street and the trader. It is, after all, a simple one of elementary trade. If the United States wants to sell, she must buy. "But," says the American importer, "I can import from Europe nothing but high-priced luxuries, since the tariff wall is so high that it does not pay me to trade in cheap goods. I am able to create a trade in highpriced, exquisite leather, linen, woolen, silk, and certain fancy goods, because they have a European cachet. But they are for the few. There can never be a trade in these beautiful things for the moderate purchaser who makes up the bulk of American buyers. Public taste is not educated as it is in Europe to the purchase of high-class, long-wearing, fine goods. Most of our people buy for the moment, ready to throw things away and get new ones tomorrow. Highclass European stuff cannot be really popularized. It is a limited business."

The remedy is plain. It is the lowering of the tariff wall that prevents the European from selling to the United States. We must remember that in America's best market, that of Great Britain, the tariff wall is down to American goods. Any trader can sell in that free market. A sound policy on the part of the United States would be a system of lowered tariffs offered to countries which are the best takers of American goods. Nothing but a shortsighted and selfish policy could prevent the adoption of such a reform, as beneficial to the consumer within the United States as to the European seller.

TARIFF REBATES TO GOOD
CUSTOMERS

Such a system of tariff rebates to good customers would be simply fol

lowing out the principle which the United States has herself applied to other nations nations wherever possible. For instance, Brazil was in 1904 urged to grant to the United States special rebates on American merchandise for one reason only-that the United States was the greatest purchaser of Brazilian coffee. Brazil yielded the point, and, because the United States takes a large proportion of this coffee, without inflicting a duty against it, gives rebates amounting in the case of American flour to 30 per cent. of the duty. A similar system of privileges is seen in the case of Cuba.

There is no reason in equity why the same principle should not be applied the other way round; if Brazilian gratitude for acceptance of her goods is to be shown by special rebates then the United States should be equally grateful to Britain and France for acceptance of goods; the same rebates should be given to these excellent customers as Brazil and Cuba give to the United States. Here is, in fact, the best solution of the exchange problem which is forcing Europe to cancel orders from America. With the tariff down to the best customers, a tide of goods would be established in either direction, and the insanity of trying to export both raw and manufactured goods to the same customer while buying nothing would be exchanged for a sound economic system.

A few weeks ago there was a curious sight to be seen in one of the harbors of South America; for all the writer knows, it may still exist. Twenty-two sailing ships under charter to the United States Shipping Board lay at anchor in a beautiful nook of the hospitable bay, unable to get return cargoes to North America. All of them had sailed south laden with coal, as part of the concerted effort made to secure the coal business of Latin America from the hands of our Ally. Some of them had been