The method of packing goods intended for the export markets of Latin America is worthy of the greatest study and the most serious consideration. Poor and improper packing, so characteristic of American made goods, has caused us the loss of much business, and wherever I have been in these countries it has formed the subject of much unfavorable comment and highly warranted criticism. Of late there has been a slight tendency toward improvement in this really important branch of the foreign trade, but there is still much opportunity for bettering conditions in this regard.

In the United States with every forwarding facility, the largest, best and most complete transportation systems on earth, we are prone to think of the rest of the world as being similarly provided with modern methods for handling goods. The fact is that the burro, the llama, the camel, the elephant, the coolie and the Indian are yet the greatest common carriers, and it will be many, many years before the shrill whistle of the locomotive will supplant the jingling bells of the pack train, or the slow moving caravan, in the outer edges of terra firma. In Latin America to-day, in proportion to its size, there are comparatively few railways, and fully another century will elapse before it possesses half the amount of mileage that we have at present in the United States. This is primarily due to the scarcity of population and secondarily to the inaccessibility of many of its interior towns, built in early days in remote and secluded spots so as to be free from the frequent invasions of buccaneers, as were the coast cities, or for the purpose of being near some rich mine or fertile agricultural district. The narrow mountain trails that wend their circuitous and tiresome way along the gigantic buttresses which Nature has so profusely placed throughout this part of the world are the only routes to these inland cities. As a rule they are hardly wide enough for two mules or pack animals to pass, except at certain localities. On one side they are bounded by the walls of snow-tipped mountains, which raise their majestic heads into the clouds, while on the other yawning abysses, hundreds, sometimes thousands of feet deep, open their gaping mouths, along the bottom of which winding watercourses wend their way to the sea.

Many of the ports of Latin America are open roadsteads, such for instance as Mollendo, Peru, one of the gateways to the interior of that country and Bolivia as well. At certain seasons of the year it is almost impossible for one to land and I have known of vessels to wait as long as six weeks before getting their cargoes discharged into the rolling, tossing lighters which continually thump and smash against the side of the ship. After the lighters are loaded, they in turn have to wait days, weeks and often months before a favorable opportunity arrives for getting their contents ashore. Without being conversant with these conditions one can hardly realize the strain and pressure exerted upon packing cases at such times.

After the goods have been brought to land by the none too gentle longshoremen, they are opened by the customs authorities and examined, and are then placed upon trains for forwarding into the interior points, for practically all these ports are the terminus of some railway leading into the remote inland districts. When they have gone as far as the train can take them, they are then consigned to the tender mercies of the muleteer, aided and abetted by the llama, burro or mule, and may be weeks on the road to their final destination.

The varying climatic changes to which they are subjected should also be given due consideration. Leaving the ice-bound northern ports of the States in winter, they come through the storm tossed waters of either or both oceans to the port of disembarkation, where for days they may rest under the broiling tropical sun. As they follow their path to the interior, on train and by beast of burden, they pass through torrid heat and tropical rains, across wind swept plateaus, through sand and snow storms, sleet and hail, above the clouds in high altitudes, and down into green valleys, across swollen streams, and on again up the sides of steep canyons, and through gloomy woods. Each night they are unstrapped from the animals’ backs, and roughly thrown on the ground along the trail or in the filthy barnyard of some mountain hospice. Before the stars have stopped their twinkling in the early dawn they are again piled upon the backs of the unwilling, resisting beasts and the dreary, wearying, monotonous march resumed.

Custom has decreed the exact weight each burro, llama or mule will carry and let me add that these animals know to a nicety their load, and are life members of a union that prohibits its initiates from carrying more than is expected of them. Attempts to overload bring forth growls, groans and moans, and if these signals of protestation are overlooked by the attendants, the animal flatly refuses to budge, until the burden is made the standard union size, a condition of affairs that must be extremely satisfactory to the cause of labor.

The merchant living in the interior is always specific to state the exact dimensions of each box and how he wishes it strapped and packed, in accordance with the transportation which he will have available at the time the goods arrive. Obviously a llama or burro cannot carry as heavy a load as a mule, and the buyer, who generally owns his own pack animals, gives his instructions in accordance with the nature and size of the animals which will form his caravan. Extraordinarily heavy cases may be carried suspended from poles between two mules.

Follow these shipping instructions to the letter. The man who makes them out knows all about the difficulties that are to be overcome and is familiar with every inch of the road that must be traveled. Do not let the superior judgment of your shipping clerk alter one word of these requirements. Near Durango, in Mexico, there lie practically all the parts of a large plant, not made according to the instructions given the man who took the order. In the draughting room of the shops which constructed the machinery, they could not understand why the fly wheel of the engine should be made in so many sections adapted to be bolted together, and so they constructed it as if intended for shipment to Buffalo, and not so that a mule might carry each component part on his back. The entire order was executed in the same manner. As a result the equipment they turned out is gradually resolving itself into iron oxide, at the railway station nearest to the mine it was designed for, while the people who purchased it are filled with contempt for American methods and the American machinery company that received the business has long since vowed never to accept another Latin American commission.

If the packing instructions read:—“Each case to be made of half-inch pine boards, strapped with iron bands, half an inch wide around each end, and wrapped first in waterproof paper, then sewn in burlap, and NOT TO WEIGH more than 40 kilos (about 100 pounds)”—do exactly this and NOTHING more.

The iron bands and the heavy wood of the packing case insure protection against breakage during its ocean and railway voyage. The waterproof paper will serve to keep the contents of the case from rain and snow storms, to say nothing of preventing the spray of the ocean while it is in the lighter, from damaging its contents. The burlap sewed over all is a visible defense against theft en route, either by the customs authorities or by the pack train men. The weight of 40 kilos means that it may be strapped to the side of a burro, and form one of two such packages to be carried by him. Furthermore the wood of the case being half an inch wide, means that when the box reaches its destination, it can be sold to the coffin maker for conversion into a baby’s casket, because wood of this nature is scarce in many of these lands. The metal strips will find another use and the waterproof paper and burlap covering will serve some particular purpose, perhaps be sold to the upholsterer.

Your shipping instructions will also tell you exactly what signs or marks to put upon the outside of the case or its covering. Observe this with precision. The net and gross weights must also be marked thereon in a legible manner. Be sure that in weighing and marking the case you use the metric system for this is the only one used through all of Latin America. They know nothing of pounds and ounces. It is a wise plan to have your shipping clerk familiarize himself with this method, so as to avoid mistakes in marking, which may cause the importer much trouble at the custom house when the goods arrive.

Never place anything of a foreign nature in a packing case unless expressly instructed to do so by the shipper. Many exporters often take advantage of a small space available in a box to enclose a package of cards or some other advertising material. In most Latin American countries it is against the law for a case to contain anything more than what the bill of lading or the consular invoice expressly states, and the trouble that ensues from this desire to really help the purchaser can never be understood by those so far away from the native customs official who seizes every opportunity to extort money from the local dealer in the shape of fines and fees.

The merchant in ordering will generally definitely state just how he wants the goods which you are shipping him declared, so as to properly conform to the classification in vogue in the local custom house and its tariff regulations. Here it again behooves you to follow his instructions word for word, otherwise the officious custom house employe sees another chance to levy a fine and the unfortunate importer becomes correspondingly disgusted with your methods of doing business with him.

Finally, the packages should agree in number, weights, markings, declarations and contents with the consular invoice and the bill of lading. This will help materially all along the line from the receiving clerk of the steamship company to the merchant who accepts the consignment at its destination.

It would be well if shipping clerks engaged in the export trade would make a careful study of the geography of the Latin American countries, and the various ways of routing goods, as well as the topography of each state. This would do much toward eliminating complications. As an illustration of the ignorance so frequently displayed in this connection, let me recite what happened to a joint shipment of beer and mineral water, intended for Leon, Nicaragua. In ordering goods from this country the Latin American merchant will often have a shipment made up of goods from different cities. He will instruct or request the exporter living at the port from which the shipment is to be made, to assemble the several cases which make up his various orders, and send them under one consular invoice, his idea being to save money, in the many incidental charges made by consuls and those handling his freight. The beer came from Milwaukee and the mineral water from the warehouse in New York City. The shipping instructions read as follows:

“Ship via Isthmus of Tehuantepec, to Salina Cruz then via first opportunity to Leon, Nicaragua.”

The intellectual shipping clerk could see no valid reason for sending goods intended for Nicaragua through Mexico, so he took upon himself their routing, and as a result the goods were sent direct from New York to Bluefields, Nicaragua, on the east coast of that country, with instructions to a forwarding agent there to dispatch them to their destination on the west coast. That was three years ago and the last I heard of them was that they had been sold by the customs authorities to pay storage and other accumulated charges. Of course the forwarding agent in Bluefields realized that it would be easier to send goods to the North Pole than across the country, as he had been instructed, owing to the fact that there was hardly a mountain trail over which they might be transported. In addition to this it would take several weeks to make the journey, and the expense would be enormous. These facts were communicated to the shippers who promptly decided to abandon the goods, replying that they did not care to do business in such an inaccessible country. As a result of this colossal error goods to the value of more than $2500 were lost to the exporter and the importer, and bad feeling engendered on both sides. The speculator who bought them at the custom house sale, told me that the contents of the bottles had deteriorated so that the goods were unsaleable after their long stay in the tropical warehouse, and as a result he was the possessor of a large quantity of bottles for which he had no sale.

Shipments from the United States to a foreign country require what is known as a consular invoice to accompany them. This document states briefly the contents of the invoice, its weight, and value, from whom and for whom intended. This paper must be made out before the consul or vice-consul of the country to which the goods are to be exported, the idea being to keep track of the business between the nations. This document should always be in the language of the country for which the shipment is intended, although all the consuls do not require this condition to be rigidly complied with. They must be taken to the office of the consul or vice-consul empowered to issue and sign them and as a rule he requires one or more copies for his files and for forwarding to his government, or to the customs authorities at the port to which the goods are going. For this service he charges a fee, generally specified by law. Great care should be exercised in the preparation of these papers, as before intimated. The importer generally states just how he wishes his goods declared in these documents and it is best to follow his commands instead of those which may be issued or suggested by some of the employes of the consular office, or even the consul himself. Besides if you follow your shipping instructions there can be no cause of complaint, on the part of the buyer, should unfavorable conditions arise.

It might be well in order to impress upon the reader’s mind some of the great difficulties to be overcome and the many handlings that are received by goods in transit to follow in detail a shipment actually made from New York City to La Paz, Bolivia, the route being the usual one taken by merchandise intended for that place. The order was placed in February, 1913, early in the month and the goods arrived December 22nd, 1913, being more than ten months on the way. When the American salesman received the order at La Paz, it was immediately forwarded by the next mail to New York City, where it arrived in about five weeks. The shipment of 854 cases was made from the factory in the middle West about the 15th of April, 1913, and the vessel containing them sailed from New York harbor, May 1st, 1913. Exceptionally bad weather in the Atlantic, delays in the Straits, storms in the southern Pacific, and time lost in discharging cargo intended for intermediate ports made it September 1st, before the goods reached Mollendo, in Peru, the port of discharge for the interior. Here, owing to bad weather, Mollendo being one of the worst ports on the Pacific, and the further fact that the roads and custom house were both congested with freight, a common occurrence in this part of the world, another month was consumed before the cases were finally got ashore and passed by the Peruvian authorities. A few more days were lost in loading them on the narrow gauge railroad that runs from Mollendo to Arequipa, an inland city of Peru, and the end of the first railway. Here the goods were trans-shipped to the road running to Puno, Peru, on the shores of Lake Titicaca, where they were again discharged and allowed to wait for many days before their turn came to be stowed on the small steamer plying across this perpetually storm-tossed lake in the clouds, to Guaqui, where after being put ashore they were again examined by the Bolivian customs officials. They were next placed on the train which took them across the wind swept plateaus of Bolivia, to the edge of the tea-cup rim, at the bottom of which La Paz is situated. Here again they were transferred, this time to an electric train which took them down the face of the canyon wall, 1500 feet, to the station at the outskirts of La Paz. At this point Indian cargadores took the cases, one at a time, on their backs and carried them to the merchant’s warehouse, where they were again opened, and checked up, after which they were repacked and sent on into the interior towns, mining camps and his branch stores, via llama, burro and mule.

In this shipment there was nothing unusual. It went over the route commonly selected and took about the average length of time. If you have followed its many handlings by rough men, in all kinds of weather, you will admit at once the necessity for strong packing cases and you will, I am sure, cease to wonder why it takes goods intended for interior cities so long to reach their goal.

A wise precaution, and one to be recommended for all shipments to Latin America, is to insure them against theft en route. This may add a little to the cost of the article, but it is the only protection against petty pilfering. The fact is that the minor employes of the custom houses, as well as the porters, trainmen and pack train attendants are so poorly paid, and so completely lacking in honesty that there is every tendency in the world to appropriate whatever appeals to their fancy. I have known what should have been cases of toilet soap to arrive at their destination, filled with scrap-iron, so as not to attract suspicion by their weight, and this after duty had been collected at the custom house and freight paid by the shipper. Unless there is an insurance against these depredations one has absolutely no protection, for it is practically impossible to prove where and by whom the theft was committed. Furthermore if a conviction were obtained it would mean that in future all goods bearing your particular shipping mark would be forever doomed to trouble.

I am always forced to laugh when I think of the experience of a traveller for a well-known baking company in the United States who was making his initial trip to South America. The port at which he landed was, as it generally is, the scene of a yellow fever epidemic. Fearful of contracting this disease he decided to take the first train for the capital, located in the mountains and as a rule free from the scourge which infests the port. Inasmuch as the train left early, he deposited his twelve sample cases at the custom house with the keys and the request that after they had been inspected one of the men whom he had tipped should send them by the evening train to his hotel. After waiting for three days without receiving the trunks, during which time he frequently sent telephonic messages to the customs authorities and telegraphed and wrote the United States consul on the subject, he decided to go in person, despite his fear of contracting fever, and secure his samples. You may imagine his surprise on reaching his cases to find every one empty—the cakes and biscuits and dainties had been eaten by the customs employes. Of course it was impossible to place the blame on any one, and his loud demands for redress resulted in the police escorting him to the railway station and threatening to arrest him if he persisted in continuing his demonstrations. His cable to the house,

“Samples eaten by the customs authorities. Send duplicates,”

confirmed the belief of his employers that he had gone suddenly insane and brought this brief reply:—

“Return immediately.”

As far as I know, this big company have made no further efforts to enter these really profitable fields, which are still dominated by English cracker and biscuit concerns. I trust that the moral will be patent to my readers that it pays to keep close to your sample cases and never trust them with unreliable or unknown natives.