COMPETITIVE CONDITIONS IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 79
the better understanding of underlying basic competitive conditions
in international commerce.
In this connection a few combinations are discussed briefly under
each of the countries taken up in detail herewith. They are usually
combinations of some importance either because they illustrate some
characteristic of industrial organization, or because they affect domestic
 or export trade of the countries in question. F oreign combinations
 which are of importance because they specially affect
American exporters are discussed in Chapter V as a part of the
treatment of competitive conditions in certain industries which
actively or potentially are significant factors in American: export
trade.

GREAT BRITAIN.

British invention first applied steam power to manufacturing, and
made the first textile machinery operated by steam, which has resulted
 in the establishment of the factory system of production.
British business men reaped the first profits from these developments
 and first saw the possibilities of far greater profits in broader
markets and larger output. British cotton, woolens, iron and steel
products, because of low prices and excellent quality, found an ever
increasing sale, and it soon became the accepted view of British
business that the market for English wares extended throughout
the world.
For years in England firms have been established expressly to
manufacture goods for foreign customers; from the outset perhaps
90 per cent of the sales of such manufacturers would be for foreign
account. In the United States production is nearly always primarily
for the domestic market and only the surplus, usually but a fraction
of the total production, is exported.
From the beginning Great Britain was forced to import various
important raw and semi-finished materials and, as manufacturing increased
 both in quantity and variety, greater and greater quantities
and more and more kinds of materials had to be imported. Cotton
was and still is the chief such material imported, but rubber, wool,
copper, iron, tin, zinc, hides and skins, lumber, and many others are
brought from overseas in great quantities. These are obtained from
all over the world—cotton from the United States, India, Egypt,
and more recently to some extent from Brazil and West Africa;
copper from the United States, Spain, and Australia; rubber from
the Amazon, the Kongo, and the East Indies; wool from Australasia,
South Africa, and Argentina, etc. These materials are manufactured
and consumed in part in Great Britain and in part are exported,
to the mutual profit both of British producers and of domestic and
foreign consumers.