CONDITIONS IN PARTICULAR INDUSTRIES. 215

effect full employment for the mills when home trade has been slack,
and the secondary to secure a permanent trade in foreign markets.
Largely through these bounties German iron and steel goods have
gained a foothold in the markets previously regarded as British
preserves,! and have materially affected British trade.
The assumption which guides the syndicate is that if all the industry
is to remain efficient and produce at a minimum cost the plants must
work at a maximum capacity. During times of depression the home
market can not absorb the natural surplus without a reduction of
putput, and as a reduction in production in one allied line causes loss
and disorganization in other lines, the “ dumping” of the surplus is
sonsidered the more economical policy. This policy has at times led
to very low export prices. Steel rails, for example, have been sold
abroad $7.50 below the ordinary price. An exporting firm in New
York cited an instance where a reinforced concrete-steel company in
the United States was a bidder for a contract to erect warehouses in
Uruguay which were to cost between 2 and 4 million dollars. Two
German firms were in the field for the contract. One of them entered
a bid which would have been considered a fair offer in comparison
with the other bidders, but the second German firm submitted a bid
which was so low it precluded even the slightest chance for other
firms to compete with it. Subsequently the two German firms did the
work. A member of a firm in the Southern States stated that he had
seen Belgian and German bars offered in New Orleans at $6 per ton
below the lowest figure at which his company was able to manufacture
and deliver them.

GREAT BRITAIN.

About seven-tenths of the iron ore used in the blast furnaces of
Great Britain is produced in that country and the rest is imported.
The principal districts for the production of iron ore are the Cleveland
 district in Northern Yorkshire, the Northwest Coast district
(West Cumberland and Northwest Lancashire), and the Kast Midlands
 district. In 1912 the production of iron ore in Great Britain
was 18,790,000 long tons, of pig iron 8,751,000 tons, and of steel
6,903,000 tons. The value of iron and steel products, including mashinery,
 railroad rolling equipment. etc., exported during that time
was about $392,000,000.
The position of supremacy which Great Britain held in this industry
 up to the last quarter of the nineteenth century was largely
attained through the efforts of individual organizations and manufacturing
 establishments—independent firms operating in isolated

1 Consul General T. St. Jobn Gaffney, Dresden, 1911, quoted by W. L. Saunders,
Nfficial Report of the Second National Foreign Trade Convention. St. Louis, 1815, p. 62.
2 Phe Beonomist (London), Nov, 9, 1907, pp. 1909-1911,
tpt. II, pp. 14-15.
The Indian Trade Journal (Calcutta), July 16, 1915, p. 108,