208 REPORT ON COOPERATION -IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.
The products of the Steel Syndicate were originally divided into
two classes, A and B. The A products include (1) semifinished
steel, such as steel ingots, slabs, blooms and billets, and puddled
blooms; (2) railroad material such as rails, ties, fishplates, spikes, bed
plates; and (3) structural steel, including T, U, and I beams of more
than 80 mm. section. The B products include bars, bands, hoops,
rods, plates, sheets, tin plate, tubes, cast steel, railroad axles, steel
forgings, etc.! The Stahlwerksverband has a monopoly of the A
sroducts only. It buys them from the steel works owners and sells
them for the general account. The B products are not sold by the
steel syndicate, but formerly this production was apportioned by the
combination. For certain of these products there were independent
price cartels. In spite of numerous efforts it proved impracticable
to establish a successful cartel for steel bars.?
The syndicate agreement was renewed in 1907 and again extended
on May 1, 1912, up to June, 1917. At its last renewal only the A
products were syndicated, the sale of certain of the B products in
various territories continuing to be taken care of by various indi-7idual
 syndicates.?
Efforts have been made at various times to establish a combined
sontrol of the so-called B products similar to the control of the A
nroducts through the Stahlwerksverband. During 1914 and 1915
serious efforts were made to perfect such an organization.
The steel combination, like the coal combination, is organized by
means of an agreement between the steelworks owners. The Stahlwerksverband
 A. G. is merely the selling company of the combination.
 The capital stock of the Stahlwerksverband A. G. at the time
of its incorporation in 1904 was $95,000. The capital is needed only
for the expenses of operating the office, selling agency, etc., and is in
no comparison to the total volume of annual business, which amounts
to more than a billion marks ($238,000,000). The stock is exclusively
in the hands of the owners of the steelworks, and may be transferred
only with the consent of the general assembly.*
The administration of the Stahlwerksverband is vested in a general
assembly of all members of the syndicate, a supervisory council, and
the managing directors of the incorporated sales agency (Stahlwerksverband
 A. G.). In the assembly of steelworks owners each
member has one vote for every 10,000 tons quota of production.®
The members of the syndicate are held together by double contract.
The first, the syndicate contract, designates the relation of the selling
1 Zgllner, Eisenindustrie und Stahlwerksverband (Leipsic), 1907, p. 78 fol, and Pt.
II, pp. 9-10.
8 Kartell-Rundschau, 1914, p. 290 et seq.
3 J, Singer, op. cit, pp. 156, 167; Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Special
Agents Series No. 78, p. 94.
4 A, Zollper, op. cit,, pp. 52, 77.
5B. Walker, op. cit., p. 367.