COMPETITIVE CONDITIONS IN INTERNATIONAL

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assuine the character of private monopolies, the State might, 1G vurse
of time, be obliged to change the private monopolies into State
monopolies. In our modern economic development, Dr. Tetgricck
contended, syndicates are inevitable and to a certain degree -useful.
 He stated that by concentrating the supply, commodities may
be utilized more efficiently, and a stabilization of prices stabilizes
wages, even though not all the other activities of syndicates are above
criticism; that as long as they do not abuse their power, the State
has no occasion to interfere, and under certain conditions the State
may even be compelled to become a member of a syndicate.?
That the German Government seeks to keep itself informed on
cartels is evident from its official investigations of them, as well as
from frequent discussions in the Reichstag. In 1903 it instituted an
official investigation of cartels. A stenographic report of the hearings
 was published in the « Kontradiktorische Verhandlungen iiber
deutsche Kartelle,” while a comprehensive report of the investigations
 conducted by the Imperial Department of the Interior is contained
 in the official “Denkschrift iiber das Kartellwesen,” Berlin,
1906.
In 1912 the Imperial Department of the Interior collected new
statistics for an official cartel register.
State participation in cartels.—As owner of some coal and potash
 mines the Prussian State has been more or less closely interested
in cartel matters relating to these products. The Imperial German
Government has twice been instrumental in the formation of compulsory
 syndicates. Through the Imperial potash law of 1910 the
owners of potash mines were combined into a compulsory syndicate,
and in 1915 the Rhenish-Westphalian Coal Syndicate renewed its
syndicate agreement under pressure of the Imperial Federal Council.®
The study of cartels in Germany.—The importance ascribed in
Germany to cartels and théir bearing on German economic problems
in general may be gauged not only by the wide and general attention
given them in the German trade and commercial journals and by the
daily press, but also by the scientific study of the economic, legal, and
historical phases of the cartel question in the ever-growing cartel
literature. A monthly publication, the Kartell-Rundschau, Diisseldorf,
 is devoted exclusively to the subject of cartels. The leading
~hambers of commerce and other commercial bodies include special
reviews of cartel matters in their annual reports, and in recent years
the beginning has been made of collecting all documentary sources
relating to cartels in special cartel archives and museums.
t Berliner Jahrbuch fiir Handel u. Industrie, Jahrg., 1912, Bd. I, p. 124 fol.
' Kartell-Rundschau, 1912. p. 950. .
4S. Tschierschky, op. cit. p. 51; R, Liefmann, op. eit., p. 205; Kartell-Rundschau,
1915. ». 252 fol.