COMPETITIVE CONDITIONS IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 91

£0,815,581, in over 60 associated companies throughout the world.
Through these associated companies factories have been built and
equipped for the manufacture of soap and glycerin in France,
Belgium, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, United States, Japan,
Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa. In connection
with the supply of materials used in their manufactures, the company
 or its associated companies own oil mills in West Africa, Australia,
 South Africa, and Japan; cocoanut plantations on islands
in the Pacific, and concessions in West Africa, including a convention
 with the Belgian Colonial Government whereby that Government
 has granted to the Société Anonyme des Huileries du Congo
Belge rights to cultivate and collect palm fruit and manufacture
oil in five regions of the Belgian Kongo where palm forests exist.
This organization is an international combination, but it is net a
world monopoly such as Borax Consolidated. (See p. 347.) It is
not an amalgamation of competing foreign interests, but the development
 of a large parent concern with many subsidiaries formed for
the purpose of better meeting local laws and conditions in the countries
 in which they operate. These subsidiary companies are largely
concerned in procuring raw material, although in some countries
they are formed to manufacture and sell finished products. The
company’s business in the United States, although important, is
comparatively small, but it apparently controls the soap trade in
the United Kingdom and is the largest factor in the foreign soap
trade in South America.
Sarr.—The great center of the salt industry in the United Kingdom
 is in Cheshire. This natural concentration in the industry has
facilitated close cooperation among producers, and for some time the
control of the trade has been in a few hands? Exports have usually
been between 500,000 and 600,000 tons yearly.®
The Salt Union (Ltd.).—The most important factor in the industry
 is the Salt Union (Ltd.), a combination of 64 firms formed in
1888 and controlling at that time about 90 per cent of the output.
The purpose of the amalgamation as stated in the prospectus was “to
consolidate the undertakings of the salt proprietors in the United
Kingdom with a view of ending the reckless competition which injuriously
 affects the salt industry without conferring any adequate
advantage on the public.” The share capital of the organization was
originally £3,000,000, consisting of one-third 7 per cent preference
shares and two-thirds ordinary shares. In addition to this, there
were £1.000.000 of 43 per cent debentures. The properties taken over

1 The Statist (London), Mar. 6, 1915, p. 388.
2 Foreign Salt Market and Industry, Special Consular Report No. 52, Bureau of Manuactures,
 1912, pp. 63 and 65: and H. Levy, Monopoly and Competition, London, 1911,
p. 243. 7
8 Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom, 1914, p. 180.