204 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.

hensive character of the latter, but also in the fact that the modern
iron industry is established on a stupendous scale, and operates for
the world market. This process of evolution is marked in the iron
and steel cartels, and has resulted in the most advanced types of industrial
 concentration on a capitalistic basis. The tendency toward
the formation of large concerns, and away from the ordinary cartel
form of organization, with its more cooperative character, is said to
be due to three causes: (1) Technical development; (2) competition
and conditions of production resulting from the cartels and syndicates
 themselves; and (3) the effort of large banks to promote combinations
 that could compete with American producers in the world
markets.
The history of the combination movement in the iron and steel
industry in Germany is a long one. Rail pools existed over 50
years ago.* One of the earliest of the German cartels, the tinplate
combination, was formed in 1862. It was not until the seventies,
however, that they acquired much importance. There was an overdevelopment
 of the iron industry at the beginning of that decade,
and during the following depression the producers resorted to combinations
 to restrict their output and to maintain prices. These
sarly cartels were quite limited, with the exception of the rail
pools, but in 1886 the combination of German rolling mills expanded
to include the whole country. During the nineties fundamental
changes in the industry took place. In 1893 the powerful coal syndicate
 was formed which dominated that industry and laid the foundations
 for a mew régime in the iron trade. During this period the
cartels for pig iron, half products, heavy sheets, rods, wire nails, and
other products were formed. The culmination of this movement
was the formation in 1904 of the Stahlwerksverband, next to the
Rhenish-Westphalian Coal Syndicate, the leading German cartel.®
The iron and steel cartels in general fall into two classes. Those of
the first class are loose combinations without a central selling organization,
 and some of the products covered are malleable iron, weld
iron, band iron, wire ware, screws, cast-iron ware, building hardware,
 and skelp. The cartels of the second class are those having a
central organization with a selling office. In addition to the pig
iron and the heavy steel products covered by the steel syndicate
there are cartel combinations of this class for shipbuilding steel,
sheets, tinplate, rods, wire cables, woven wire, steel springs, car
parts, and cast-iron pipe. There are also many dealers’ cartels or
unions.
"1 Francis Walker, The German Steel Svndicate, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol.
KX, May, 1906, D. 360.
2R. Liefmann, Kartelle u. Trusts (Stuttgart), 1910, p. 26.
' 8. Tschierschky, Kartell und Trust (Leipsic), 1811, p. 138.
\ Walker, op. cit, p. 360-362.
SRB. Liefmann. op. cit.. pp. 26 and 151.