FOREWORD. "THEORY AND PRACTICE OF INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE" is intended as a scientific outline of the merchandizing principles in export and import. In its theoretical portion it aims to supply the teachers and the students in American colleges with a logically built-up course of instruction, and the business world at large with an exposition of those economic principles which are responsible for the development of modern methods in exporting and importing for the evolution of the present-day sales machinery in international commerce, and for the establishment of that vast body of unwritten commercial law known as "commercial usage." In PART II ("Problems of Modern American Export Practice") the author does not attempt to deal with elementary lessons and hints on the subject of export routine, qualifications of salesmen, packing methods, etc. It may be assumed that all practical exporters and importers are familiar with such A.B.C. matters. An attempt to cover the entire range of these topics in one volume is doomed to superficiality in the very elements in which their discussions would be serviceable: their detailed treatment, with illustrations, is possible only in intense specialized study units. The present volume adopts the plan of a detailed analysis of a few selected practical problems in which a changed outlook, due to the developments of recent years, calls for a thorough presentation. These problems include foreign credits and the evolution of modern banking facilities; commercial laws and regulations affecting incorporations abroad; the value and the correct use of sources of information at home and abroad, and the proper sphere and development of official and associational trade promotion; finally the rational methods of modern publicity. All the other practical matters bearing on international commerce, by the way, are incidentally referred to throughout the volume insofar they affect the rights and obligations of the vendor and the buyer as parties to international sales contracts. To build up a scientific presentation of the principles of international commerce requires the sifting of a tremendous mass of fact material, some of which is notoriously unamenable to grouping and analyzation. In the mass of available fact material in international commerce stands out a central technical process known as the "sale." This forms the center of our consideration, leading us to a systematic study of conditions antecedent and subsequent to the conclusion of the sales contract, including the historic development of the present day commercial organization in the country of export and its counterpart in the country of import; the rights and obligations arising from the conclusion of the sales contract; the technique of pricing, etc. The activities of exporters and of importers at home and overseas are closely analyzed; the conflicting interests of the exporters and of the importers, of producers and of distributors, are carefully reviewed by markets. An attempt is made to classify importers and exporters and to make clear distinctions between types. A careful consideration is given to commercial usage in the matters of quality, of quantity, of style and make-up, to the problems of time and place of contract performance, of pricing, discounting, terms of payment, form of contracts, etc. In considering the principles underlying export trading, the present volume follows the shipment of manufactured products from the United States and the industrial countries of Europe to those essentially importing countries constituting what is known as the "export field." The analysis of the commercial organization in the exporting country leads us to a review of the connections between the exporting and the importing country, as initiated either by the vendor or by the buyer, and concludes with the study of the distributing organization in the importing country. In considering the import trade, it takes up the shipment of oversea products from the non-industrial countries such as LatinAmerica, the Far East, African colonies, etc. to United States and the industrial countries of Europe, pursuing the same course as outlined for the export trade, but with the objectives reversed. ARCHIBALD J. WOLFE. New York, July 1919. CONTENTS International Commerce as an Economic Science. 1 The Meaning of Commerce............................................................... 359 General Commercial Organization. 3. Merchants Trading for Own Account.. 4. Commission Merchants and Agents |