COMPETITIVE CONDITIONS IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 115

With these organizations, which were “self-contained,” the Gernans
 could sell a Chinaman a 5-cent handsaw, or they could develop
 a province, all within their own circle. British observers
state that in their opinion such organizations were one of the chief
reasons for the rapid extension of German trade in China, and this
's emphasized by the fact that recently British manufacturers have
been forming similar organizations of allied and complementary, but
not competing firms, for the development of their trade in the Orient.
FRANCE.

The general reputation of French products is that they are artizles
 of special refinement, such as fine dress goods, silke, laces, gowns,
millinery, glassware and china, art works of many kinds, wines,
liqueurs, etc. Even in the case of French machinery there is often
the same feeling that it is of finer technical excellence, of more graceful
 design and better finished. To a marked degree this is doubtless
true. The French have specialized in distinctive creations that appeal
 to discriminating purchasers, and they have built up and kept
a valuable foreign trade in such special lines. At the same time
there is an important French foreign trade in manufactures that
hold their market because of solid merit and not through grace of
Jesign or superior outward finish. While France is an important
agricultural producer, it is for the purpose of domestic consumption.
In manufacturing France ranks in continental Europe next to
Germany. Before the war she was the fourth nation in the world
in the production of iron, and the production of silk, cotton, and
woolen goods was a most important branch of manufacturing. In
the production of the elegant and artistic creations known as
‘Articles de Paris” France surpasses all the rest of the world.
Imports and Exports.—In the table below are given the values of
the principal imports and exports of France in 1918.1

TABLE O.—Imports and exports of France. 1918.

Article

Wool........
Coal and coke..
Raw cotton...
01) 1 I: SR
Jrains and oily fruits
Raw silk........
Yachines, etc... -
Ines. conpooans
Yang and hides..
Lumber.....

Imports.

Value (in
million
francs).

549.1
384.0
577.2
365. 8
387.6
$1.1
7.4
nb
23.9
210.1

Exports.

Article.

lk textiles. ..-Cotton
 textiles.
3aW Wool. i voit
Jiojhng ape lingerie.....
Automobiles... ...
Woolen textiles...
&gt;hemical products
Vines......
aris goods...
Skins and hides...

Value (in
million
franes),

385.8
385.5
310.5
252.6
227. 4
220.2
212.8
203.1
201. 5
180.3

l Tableau Général du Commerce et Navigation, 1918, Vol. 1, pp. 50-65.