Foreign & Domestic Commerce

By spending $3,263,000 between July 1926 and July 1927, the U. S. Bureau of Foreign & Domestic Commerce (stated its Director Julius Klein in his annual report last week) helped 2,500,000 firms and individuals and brought them $500,000,000 in additional profits. A U. S. maker of lubricants thus secured $300,000 new business in Berlin, a San Francisco fruit firm $100,000 in Buenos Aires; an electric car manufacturer $1,000,000 in Madrid; a Manhattan novelty house $300,000 in Montreal; a motor car maker $300,000 in Rome.

U. S. domestic commerce has received far less of the bureau's attention. For 1927-28 it has only $200,000 to spend on marketing surveys which various sections of the country are demanding. The bureaus' greatest domestic concern is to reduce waste in distributing commodities. The total value of U. S. business transactions each year approximates 80 billion dollars. Of this 10% is spent on inefficient methods of distribution.