CHAPTER V.

COMPETITIVE CONDITIONS AND EXPORT COOPERATION
IN PARTICULAR INDUSTRIES.

SECTION 1. INTRODUCTION.

The present chapter has a double purpose. In the first place, it is
intended to supplement the discussion of competitive conditions in
international trade and the industrial organization of the chief
commercial nations which is given in the two preceding chapters.
To this end, a number of important industries are taken up by countries
 and the organization of each industry in each country is discussed
 with special reference to combinations and methods of selling
which affect trade in the home market of each country and which
project themselves into international trade. At the same time, international
 combinations of producers and combinations among buyers
of American exports are also discussed.
In the second place, it is intended to present the facts as to the
part which cooperation, solely for export trade, among American
producers might play in the extension of our foreign trade in these
particular lines of production.
The industries selected for such discussion here are iron and steel
and their products, textiles, electrical goods, chemicals, phosphate
rock, Portland cement, lumber, coal. petroleum, and metals, such as
copper, lead, and zinc. These are all of actual or potential importance
 in the export trade of the United States, but it should not be inferred
 that these are the only industries in which American producers
meet severe competition in export business from combinations of their
foreign competitors, or that cooperation among American producers
in other industries would not be of material advantage. On the
contrary, the conditions portrayed for the Industries discussed in
this chapter and the advantages of export cooperation also hold
broadly for numerous other industries not mentioned here.
Before entering on the specific discussion of cooperation in particular
 industries it is advisable to present a general discussion of
the attitude of American business and professional men toward this
means of assisting export trade.
One of the facts that stands out sharply as the result of the Commission’s
 inquiry is the strength and character of the demand for

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