8

REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.

industries concerned but also to the advantage of the public through
retarding the depletion of the supply. They point out that other
countries have taken measures, in connection with cooperation among
producers, to increase the prices received for the products of such
natural resources in the export trade and also to conserve the supply.
For example, the German Government has enacted a law which fixes
the quantities of potash sold both in export and domestic trade and
forbids the sale for export at prices below those fixed for the domestic
market. The Government potash mines are members of the producers’
 syndicate.

COOPERATION NEEDED IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.

If Americans are to enter the markets of the world on more nearly
aqual terms with their organized competitors and their organized
customers, and if small American producers and manufacturers are
to engage in export trade on profitable terms, they must be free to
unite their efforts.
Without any export organization, foodstuffs and raw materials
can readily be sold at some price, but to avoid needless expense in
distribution, to meet formidable foreign buying organizations, and
to insure profitable export prices, cooperation among American producers
 of such commodities is desirable.
In the sale of factory products, cooperation is even more desirable.
 Such goods must be advertised, demonstrated, and a market
created abroad, often in the face of the keenest competition from
great combinations of foreign manufacturers. Obviously only strong
organizations can undertake this contest. If groups of American
manufacturers and producers, either. of competing or of noncompeting-
 goods, can combine their efforts, they can share the cost of
developing new markets, establish themselves firmly, extend credit
more readily to foreign customers, and compete more successfully
with foreign syndicates and cartels.
This cooperation among manufacturers and producers, it should
be emphasized, while it will result in many lines in the system of
direct representation abroad, will by no means supplant the export
commission houses and export merchants. The experience of England
 and Germany, where a very high proportion of over-seas trade
is carried on by these houses, indicates their great value as an aid
not only to independents but to combinations in international commerce.

Tt is not the view of the Commission that cooperation alone will
insure successful entry in foreign markets. Shipping facilities,
agencies for financing transactions, all under American control, and
training for the production and sale of goods in foreign commerce