COMPETITIVE CONDITIONS IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 125
ors. In 1901, at the instigation and with the help of the Association
des Salines de ’Est, whose own market was depressed by the competing
 low-priced salt from the western salt makers, a selling company,
 called the Association Syndicale des Salines de Ouest, was
formed. This company brought together about nine-tenths of the
salt producers of western France. The plan worked for four years,
but in 1905 and 1906 the competition of unsyndicated producers
brought the price below 15 francs per ton, which was the price at
which the company had agreed to take the product from the syndicated
 producers. The company was unable to fulfill its obligations.
The Association des Salines de I’Est came to its aid, and a new company,
 the Société Salinitre de I’Ouest, was formed, which succeeded
to the business. The new company offered to buy the output of
syndicated as well as unsyndicated producers at 15 francs a'ton.
This agreement came to an end in 1911; but bad weather greatly
reduced the output of salt, and the price rose to 23 francs a ton. The
i5-franc contracts were therefore not renewed. War conditions appear
 to have raised the price enormously. In November, 1915, the
price to the producers was reported as 60 francs a ton.
La CoypacNie bE St.~Goparn.—Founded 250 years ago as a plateglass
 manufactory, La Compagnie de St.—Gobain now is not only
one of the chief producers of plate glass in the world, but has
engaged in the manufacture of chemicals, and in that line is the
chief producer in France. It is international in character. About
two-thirds of the establishments owned by the company are located
in France, the remainder being in Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain,
Austria, and Bohemia.
The branching out of this concern into other lines than plate glass
appears to have been the result of a policy of securing control of
sertain raw materials essential to its manufacture of glass: In pursuance
 of this object it established or bought works for marketing the
various necessary chemicals, and it bought large tracts of forest
land as fuel reserves. It has followed the policy of establishing a
monopoly along chemical lines by either purchasing competing glass
and chemical concerns or entering into agreements with them. For
a more detailed description of its operations, see pages 293-294. It
was a prominent member of the international plate-glass syndicate,
which existed prior to the war. Besides this international affiliation,
 it established, with three other producers, a French plate-glass
comptoir in 1903, to continue for 15 years. This comptoir presents
the peculiarity that, while all sales are made through the central
bureau (8 rue Boucry, Paris), each member retains his particular
mark of manufacture on his goods. Hence four distinct distributing

1 See Consul Patton's report, Pt. II, pp. 118-114,