COMPETITIVE CONDITIONS IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 111
were given, under the law, unfair advantages with respect to initial
production. A period of overspeculation set in, as a result of which
in 1912 more than 100,000,000 marks were invested in the potash
industry, which, without this increase, could easily produce ‘double
the amount necessary to supply the world’s demand at the prices
asked.
To remedy these conditions the Federal Council drafted a bill to
amend the potash law, while at the same time the Potash Syndicate,
 in order to prevent any further government intervention, took
steps to bind its members not to open new works up to January 1,
1926. As a result of the outbreak of the present war the whole
matter has been kept in suspense.?
Cartels among dealers.—The development.of cartels has not been
restricted exclusively to the sphere of production; in trade also they
are developing with increasing success. Dealers’ cartels are found in
nearly every branch of industry, some of them, like the coal and iron
dealers’ combines, encompassing the whole Empire. Although a
majority are but local price agreements, some are organized like
the producers’ syndicates with a common central business office.
Most dealers’ cartels are in branches of industry in which the producers
 are also combined. It is impossible to give even an approximate
 number of these dealers’ cartels, because most of them are local
and observe great secrecy regarding the nature of their compacts.
Special organization for foreign trade.— Before the war one of
the features of Germany’s foreign trade was the extent to which
special organized effort was applied by German business men to the
development of advantageous export and import business. Associations,
 cartels, special export selling agencies, special export cartels
among allied or complementary manufacturers, active aid by the
German financial organizations and by the German merchant marine,
 together with the support of the Imperial Government—this
was the system which had pushed German export trade into all the
markets of the world. Equally effective methods were employed in
the business of buying cheaply the raw materials that Germany was
compelled to import, and in some cases very comprehensive buying
combinations with world-wide international branches and subsidiaries
 were developed to purchase these materials. (See pp. 857-369.)
Such organized effort made it possible for the Germans to publish
a daily paper in Constantinople, printed in both French and German,
for the promotion of an interest in all things German and for the
improvement of German trade in the Levant. Similarly it per-“3
 Bertolt Bandai, 1913, p. 39. Berliner Jahrbuch fiir Handel und Industrie, 1913,
g 2 WB 1914, pp. 106, 195, and 1915, pp. 48, 124.
* H. Bonikowsky, op. cit., p. 213 fol.