192 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.

European manufacturers of quebracho extract, who buy the quebracho
 logs exported to Europe. In the annual report of the company
 for the year ending December 31, 1914, the acquisition by the
Forestal company of the New York Tanning Extract Co. and of the
Argentine Quebracho Co. is described. After mentioning the financial
details of the purchase, it is stated:
The properties of the late Argentine Quebracho Co. are now
included in the item “Freehold timber and pastoral lands, etc.”
whilst the Factory and real estate in New York, acquired from the
New York Tanning Extract Co., have been incorporated into a new
American company, entitled ‘The New York Quebracho Extract Co.
(Inc.),” the shares and bonds of which owned by us are included in
“Holdings in associated undertakings and other investments.”
In the course of a speech made at the annual meeting of the company
 on June 18, 1915, its chairman, Baron d’Erlanger, discussed
the large interests in the company of German shareholders and the
retention of Germans in the company’s employ in Argentina, and
pointed out that the English tanners and those of the allied countries
were absolutely dependent on the use of quebracho extract to fulfill
their war contracts. He pointed out that years before the formation
of the present company the Argentine Forestal Co., which he characterized
 as having been the only successful quebracho enterprise
established in Argentina, had been formed to take over the joint
interests of a Franco-German group composed of Messrs. Portalis &amp;
Co. on the one side, and Messrs. Harteneck and Renner on the other
side. Messrs. Portalis had an interest in the Argentine Forestal Co.
of about 30 per cent, and the German interest comprised 70 per cent.
In 1907, the Forestal Land, Timber &amp; Railways Co., an English company,
 was formed to take over the assets of the Argentine Forestal Co.
Owing to increases of capital which have since been made, the vendors
in the latter company lost their controlling interest in the English
company along time ago, and according to Baron d’Erlanger’s estimate,
the real distribution of shares according to the nationality of the
owners was, in 1915, as follows: 1,325,000 shares in English hands,
866,000 shares in German, 400,000 shares in French, 386,000 shares
in American, 86,000 shares in Dutch, and the remaining shares, about
36,000, in the hands of persons of other nationalities.
In discussing the reasons for the retention of German employees
by an English-controlled company, at a time of war between the two
nations, he pointed out that, because of the success obtained by the
management of the Argentine Forestal Co., it was made a condition
of the purchase contract that the management of the company should
be retained. Therefore Baron Frederic Portalis and Messrs. Harteneck
 and Renner became members of the board of the English company.
 According to Baron d'Erlanger:!
1Review of the River Plate, July 23, 1915, pp. 210 and 215.