International practice;

              INTERNATIONAL
PRACTICE
By J. Harry Williams
& SELLS,
CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS,
30 Broad St., New York.
Chicago Office.
London Office..
.20* Deart>orn St.
...30 Coleman St.
ANNOUNCE
the opening of an office at
30 Coleman Street,
London, E. C.
A number of the large British accounting firms had es­tablished
offices in the United States before the turn of
the century, among them Deloitte, Plender, Griffith &
Co. (1890), but the opening of our office in London on
April 1, 1901 was, I believe, the first instance of a re­versal
of this trend. An announcement which appeared
that day in London and New York newspapers is repre­sented
at the left. It shows that the London Office was
the third to be established by our Firm, the Chicago
Office having been opened in 1900.
Why did Haskins & Sells venture abroad so early in
its career? The answer is simple—to serve our clients
who had established foreign operations. The basic pol­icy
established by the founders of our Firm with the
opening of the London Office has not changed; we must
be in a position to serve our clients where ever in the
world they wish to operate. One of these clients who
had ventured abroad and needed service in London
just before we opened our office was Barnum and Bailey
Circus.
After World War I, the flow of American capital
abroad began to assume really significant proportions.
In line with our policy, the Firm kept pace. H & S offices
were opened in Havana and Shanghai in 1919, in Paris
in 1920, in Berlin in 1924, and Manila in 1926. Except
for Havana, practice in these offices was suspended be­cause
of World War II, and practice in Havana was sus­pended
by Castro. Paris was reopened shortly after the
war; Shanghai and Manila could not be reopened—
Shanghai because of the Communist takeover, and
Manila because of restrictive legislation regulating the
professions adopted by the Philippine government
shortly after independence. In Germany we moved the
domicile of our Wirtschaftspruefungesellschaft (liter­ally:
certified public accounting firm) from Berlin to
Dusseldorf, reactivated it, and changed its name from
Haskins & Sells to Deloitte, Plender, Haskins & Sells.
There is no precise date marking the establishment
of our long relationship with the fine British firm of
Deloitte, Plender, Griffith & Co. However, we do know
that DPG&Co. collaborated with us in rendering cer­tain
professional services in an insurance investigation
in New York in 1905-06. We know, too, that Deloittes
rendered services overseas to certain of our clients from
time to time thereafter, but it was not until 1924 that
the relationship was formalized by combining our prac­tices
in Canada, Mexico, and Cuba (where Deloittes
had maintained offices for many years) and organizing
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