8 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE,

ufactures imported by it from the United States were valued at
$112,000,000. In the year that the United States exported this $112,-000,000
 of manufactu.ed articles to Great Britain, it exported to
South America only $146,000,000 of all classes of commodities.
In 1912 Germany imported from the rest of the world over $383,-000,000
 worth of manufactured articles. France imported manufactures
 worth $314,000,000, Netherlands $307,000,000, Italy $167,
900,000, Belgium $157,000,000, and Japan $60,000,000. While these
totals cover groups not strictly alike and not comparable as to details,
 they are sufficient to show the great value of these countries as
foreign markets for manufactured goods.
British official publications show that in 1913, of total imports
of iron and steel products into the United Kingdom amounting to
$74,000,000, those from the United States were valued at $6,000,000,
and those from Germany at nearly $37,000,000. Total imports for
consumption of machinery and parts were valued at $29,000,000,
while those from the United States were valued at $13,000,000.
Since the United States must regard the great commercial countries
as highly valuable customers, as well as rivals for the trade of the
less developed lands, the business organization which American industry
 must encounter, either when doing business within the borders
 of those countries or when meeting them in competition in other
countries, has a direct bearing on the extension of American export
trade. The German organization, for example, is of importance
to American manufacturers not only because they must meet that
organization in South America but also because they must meet it
in England, France, Austria, etc., and in Germany itself.
In certain respects the industrial organization of the great commercial
 countries is necessarily much the same. Their major manufactures
 are conducted under the factory system, they use modern
methods of communication, they have modern financial systems, etc.
But in many important respects, affecting foreign trade particularly,
there are marked differences between one country and another. This
is especially true of the degree of concentration and unification of
Industry, which materially modifies the character of competition
which American exporters must meet from different foreign manufacturers.
 In some cases individual American exporters compete
with individual foreign concerns; in other cases they must compete
with powerful groups of foreign manufacturers acting as units in
foreign markets. The success of American efforts to engage in
foreign business is obviously affected by such conditions.
There follows a brief discussion of the salient features of the
industrial organization of the chief commercial countries. This is
given merely to show the general character of industrial enterprise,
organization, and interrelation in these countries as a background for