Germany And The Canal.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 19, 1912:
    The Berlin dispatch of The Times yesterday, setting forth the aim of Germany, should the Government take part in the Panama Exposition at San Francisco, is significant. Neither the Government nor German business men will expect to gain much American trade by what they can show there. They will seek chiefly South American trade.
    They will not seek it in vain, as against the competition of the United States they have two grand advantages. They are ready to buy as well as to sell in South America, and they are strongly and skillfully organized for foreign commerce. The American policy is to fine South America heavily on its products. That blocks imports. Then, safe within our fortified home market, our manufacturers, as a rule, do not learn the arts of foreign trade, are indifferent to it, and unfitted for it. In these conditions, the main benefit to our business from the San Francisco Exposition will be the object lesson it will afford as to the futility and shortsightedness of our wretched "protective" tariff.