{i - Bb Ro,
CONDITIONS IN PARTICULAR INDUSTRIES. {2  ff}gl i
' -
lower than are charged home consumers. These low ex cpprices -
worked a hardship on consumers of pig iron in Germany Cyaan
manufacturing semifinished and finished articles to be sold abr,"
as they could not meet the cost price of their foreign competitors.
In self-defense they formed consumers’ cartels and the syndicate was
forced to adopt a policy of granting rebates or bounties on pig iron
purchased from it and used to manufacture articles for export.!
This bounty, which included the coal bounty of 1.50 marks, was in
July, 1918, 4.75 marks and in October was raised to 6.25 marks per
metric ton.? This bounty applies to finished cast-iron articles, such
as radiators, stoves, and many other products for which the iron was
hought from the Pig Iron Syndicate.
The results claimed to have been attained by the syndicate are
(1) a regulation of production to meet the demands in the market
without exceeding them; (2) reduction of the cost of selling; and
{3) the maintenance of a price which nets a reasonable profit.
Steel.—The Stahlwerksverband.—The most important combination
 for steel is the Stahlwerksverband (Steel Syndicate), organized
in 1904, which practically monopolizes the production and distribution
 of steel in Germany. It united a number of combinations of
manufacturers, the Halbzeugverband (semifinished steel), the Triigerverband
 (beams), the Schienengemeinschaft (rails), and the Schwellengemeinschaft
 (railway ties), comprising in all 27 companies with a
total production at the time of its foundation of 7.900,000 metric tons.
In 1912 the membership included 81 companies, including all the
German basic Bessemer (Thomas) steel works and a number of the
open-hearth (Martin) steel works. The capital value of the concerns
in the steel syndicate, which also included most of the large coalproducing
 concerns, was estimated in 1905 to amount to about
$362,000,000. In forming the syndicate the guiding principle was to
combine as far as possible all products of the steel works and the
rolling mills. Tt has succeeded in combining the production and
distribution of semifinished railroad and structural steel into an
almost absolute monopoly. With respect to other rolled products it
has been much less successful. Most of the works belonging to the
syndicate are concerned in the production of coal and coke and a
wide range of semifinished and finished iron and steel products, and
are the chief factors in other cartels for the marketing of such
products.?

!'W. L. Saunders, Official Report of the Second National Foreign Trade Convention,
St. Louis, Jan. 21, 1915, pp. 62-63.
* Australasian Hardware and Machinery, June, 1915. Sup. p. 63.
#J. Riesser, Die deutschen Grossbanken u. ihre Konzentration, 3d ed. 1910, pp.
[41 fol.; J. Singer, Das Land der Monopole: Amerika oder Deutschland? (Berlin),
1913, pp. 154-159; FF. Walker, op. cit., p. 374.