156 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.

French, German, and Belgian bankers, embracing about 100 firms
organized in 19 sections or syndicates, and covering everything in
the industry from ore to finished iron and steel and various products
made therefrom. (See pp. 230 and 241.) In the Russian coal industry
 the French banks have been very active in organizing the
coal combination, “Produgol”; and in the textile industry, particularly
 in cotton-yarn production, British capital has played and
is still playing an important part. In the Russian electrical industry
the Germans formerly led;through the Russian branches of the Allgemeine
 Elektricitits Gesellschaft. Various combinations have also
seen formed in the petroleum industry.
In the manufacture of agricultural implements various combinations
 have been in effect, some of them international arrangements
smbracing Austrian and German manufacturers.
The earliest combination was an international pitchfork syndicate
(Russischer Gabelverband) organized in 1908 by German, Austrian,
and three Russian works. This syndicate apportioned the sales so
that the syndicate of the German factories received 13% per cent,
the syndicate of the Austrian factories 3% per cent, and the three
Russian factories 83 per cent of the entire Russian sales.* This syndicate
 also fixed prices and sales conditions. The syndicate agreement
 lasted until October 19, 1904, and was never renewed.
In 1907 the Russian Government organized the “ Convention of
the Manufacturers of Agricultural Machinery and Implements” as a
permanent organization for the protection of the interests of that
industry. It has made contracts with Russian works for the production
 of certain kinds of agricultural machinery which up to that
time had been imported from abroad, and it fixes prices on certain
kinds of agricultural machinery.? -
Government sales of agricultural machinery—Of great importance
 in the marketing of agricultural implements and similar supplies
 in the Russian Empire are the sales through government bodies.
It is said that in Siberia alone there are 300 government depots for
the sale of farming implements and tools.
In European Russia sales by the Zemstvos constitute an interesting
feature of the business. The Zemstvo is a sort of local self-government
 institution in Russia. The provincial Zemstvo acts for the
whole Province, the district (county) Zemstvo is in charge of the district
 or of the next smaller administrative unit of the Province.
The Orel provincial Zemstvo has been in the business of distributing
 agricultural machinery since 1900. In 1904 it began to buy roof
sheet iron wholesale and to distribute it among the farmers at retail.

iI, B. Kafengaus, Sindlkaty v russkol zheleznoi promyshlennostl, Moscow, 1910,
p. 112, fol.
'Kafengaus, op. cit, p. 111.
Canada, Department of Trade and Commerce, Russian Trade, 1918, p. 48.