Yet another point to which the attention of British manufacturers may be drawn is the unattractive manner in which the cheaper classes of goods are turned out. I have in previous publications shown how trade with the Latin-American countries is injured by the extremely commonplace and often ugly coverings and wrappings used upon boxes or bindings. The question is, "Why should an article, because it is perhaps cheap, be made particularly ugly?" The long-established custom among our manufacturers of using the commonest and crudest of coverings is matched by their fondness for finishing off their cheaper articles in the dullest and least attractive of colours or casings. This is in striking contrast to both American and German manufacturers, whose artistic taste is shown in the manner in which their goods--often mere rubbish though they be--are packed, and with very excellent results, so far as the export trade is concerned. In an age like ours, when lithography of every description is so cheap and taste in design so improved, it seems wholly absurd that good orders should be continually lost on account of their non-adoption.
I have heard of another idea which I may pass on to manufacturers of small articles enjoying a large sale in these countries, and this is to procure, through anyone living in the country, photographs of the rulers--the Presidents and Vice-Presidents--and use them lavishly upon their labels and box-covers whenever possible. The people are extremely fond of collecting these cheap oleographs and pasting them upon their walls and windows; and in all parts of South and Central America may be seen thousands of the pictures of King Edward and Queen Alexandra, of the Kaiser, and even of famous actresses. How much more readily would the features of a familiar ruler or a popular Minister help the sale of a cheap material or a low-priced article of any kind? The desire to secure something for nothing--or as an extra "thrown in"--is as predominant in Latin-America as elsewhere in the world, and must be pandered to.
[Illustration: VIEW OF THE NEW AVENIDA LEADING TO SAN SALVADOR, TAKEN FROM THE NORTH.]
Salvador is one of the many Latin-American States whose great richness and prosperity repose in their immediate future. In area it is one of the smallest of the Central American Republics, but it is in no whit less important from a prospective development point of view. Its superficial area is but 7,225 miles, but its population is considerably over 1,000,000, which gives it an average to the square mile much in excess of either Guatemala, Costa Rica, or Nicaragua. It is, moreover, an easier country to deal with, physically considered, since it is in fully three parts of its area quite amenable to cultivation. It is remarkably well-watered, it is richly endowed with mineral deposits, and its people are a quiet, peaceful, and industrious race, well-disposed towards foreigners, and with as much distaste nowadays for revolutions and internecine disturbances as their immediate neighbours would appear to display for similar diversions.