Report by H. R. H.

Edward of Wales, reporting to the manufacturers of Great Britain on his South American tour (TIME, Jan. 26, et seq.), made two speeches, one in Manchester and one in London last week, both to bigwigs. His advice, painful to British ears but received with loyal cheers, may be summed up in eight words: Be bright, be cheap, be American or German.

The present British practice is to make dull-colored things out of massive materials (such as cast iron), state quietly that they are British, therefore exceptionally well made, therefore necessarily higher priced, and to try to sell such goods in competition with bright-colored articles made of light materials (such as pressed steel) and sold by advertising not that they are American or German but that they are efficient, inexpensive. Only by realizing, as Edward of Wales profoundly does, the inert, self-satisfied attitude of most British manufacturers does one get the full flavor of H. R. H.'s words. Excerpts from his remarks:

"What did we learn? . . . The impression seems to exist ... in the whole of South America . . . that we are supplying the goods of yesterday while our competitors are supplying the goods of today. ...

"The taste of the world is in fact becoming as fickle as women's fashions. . . . People . . . want something cheaper. . . . They have, I believe, got into the habit of liking change for the sake of change. . . . To compete with foreign prices we should sacrifice some of the . . . solidity we have been accustomed to give. . . .

"I know that many Englishmen sneer at the North American idea of publicity and describe their methods of boosting as vulgar. . . . I am sorry to say that we are sadly behind the times in the field of advertising."

On his Britain-boosting tour Edward of Wales used a Bell & Howell (U.S.) amateur movie camera. Back in London he invited numerous peers and bigwigs to view his films, projected them himself with a Bell & Howell projector. H. R. H. smokes U. S. cigarets, plays golf with Walter Hagen clubs, shows a marked dancing preference for U. S. young women, plays U. S. jazz on his saxophone, and as Empire Salesman "threw" for South American bigwig prospects at least one major salesman's drinking party of approved, standardized U. S. pattern, at Vina del Mar, Chile (TIME, March 9).

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