CONDITIONS IN PARTICULAR INDUSTRIES. 203

United States exports went to Canada. Exports of materials ready
for consumption were as a rule much more widely distributed, although
 in some articles such as structural steel the proportion taken
by Canada was relatively high, being in that instance about 55 per
cent. The reasons for the relatively small export trade in iron and
steel products from the United States to the other foreign nations,
when its leadership in production in the industry is considered, are
to be found chiefly in the conditions under which the European
branches of the industry are conducted, and which give them so
large a share of the world’s commerce in iron and steel products.
Aside from differences in the cost of production, these conditions are
briefly set forth herewith for the chief producing nations.

BLAST FURNACE AND ROLLING-MILL PRODUCTS.
GERMANY.

The chief seats of German iron and steel manufacture are in Prussia
 (Rhine Province, Westphalia, and Upper Silesia) and Lorraine.
In 1912 (the latest year for which figures are available), the production
 of iron ore in Germany (including Luxemburg) was reported
 at 82,190,000 tons; of pig iron, at 17,582,000 tons; and of steel
at 17,024,000 tons. It exported in 1912 about 3,600,000 tons of iron
and steel in the form of pigs, ingots, bars, plates, sheets, etc., valued
at about $104,000,000, and other forms of iron and steel products
(including machinery, railroad rolling equipment, etc.) to the value
of $380,000,000.
Producers of iron and steel in Germany are organized into two
principal combines, the Roheisenverband, G. m. b. H. (Pig Iron
Syndicate), and the Stahlwerksverband (Steel Syndicate). These
syndicates, besides being closely connected with each other, and
with a large number of lesser producers’ combinations in the industry,
 also have close trade agreements with combinations of retajlers
 and consumers, and with combinations in other industries,
such as the Rheinisch-Westfilisches Kohlensyndikat, which dominates
 the coal industry. The Pig Iron Syndicate and the Steel Syndicate
 are not trusts in the American sense, inasmuch as the firms which
make them up are bound together by contract for limited periods
only.
Combinations in the German iron industry are of ancient date,
and have assumed forms adapted to the contemporary economic
organization. The distinction between the early methods of combination
 and the modern system lies not only in the more compre-1

 Statistical Abstract for the Principal and other Foreign Countries, No. 39 (London)
914, Table 26, p. 135.