CONDITIONS IN PARTICULAR INDUSTRIES. 225

above were members of the comptoir, so that it had absolute control
of domestic and foreign sales and became the most powerful organization
 of the kind in Belgian iron metallurgy.
Soon after the comptoir came into existence the dealers in beams
organized the Union professionnelle des marchands de poutrelles de
Belgique, which made an agreement with the comptoir by which the
latter refrained from dealing with the dealers’ customers and bound
itself to increase its retail prices. It was also agreed that no one
dealer should be given a better price than another, that the quantities
contracted for should be delivered, and that the dealers would buy
only from the comptoir.?
Other combinations.—The comptoir did not include all the steel
organizations in Belgium. Those for steel tires, axles, moldings,
rods, and sheet steel operated independently of the comptoir. - Combinations
 for tires and axles and for steel moldings existed for different
 periods, but were dissolved. Down to 1909, and probably
thereafter, two organizations, one for sheet steel and the other for
steel slabs, were in operation, and once a month the directors of
the works interested met at Brussels to discuss the market and fix
prices.?
While the Belgian syndicates were not as compactly organized as
the cartels of Germany, yet they exerted a vigorous influence in the
foreign sales of iron and steel products. Several American manufacturers
 have stated their inability to compete successfully in foreign
 markets with the Belgians in such articles as steel beams, steel
lath. ete.

FRANCE.

In 1912 France produced 18,700,000 long tons of iron ore, of which
about nine-tenths came from the mines of the Department of
Meurthe-et- Moselle; 4,870,000 tons of pig iron; and 4,330,000 tons of
steel. It exported iron and steel products, including machinery,
railroad rolling equipment, etc., valued at about $51,000,000.
The general form of combination in the iron and steel industry in
France is the comptoir. The most important of these are the Comptoir
 Métallurgique de Longwy, Comptoir d’Exportation des Fontes
de Meurthe-et-Moselle, Comptoir des Poutrelles, Comptoir des Essieux,
 and the Comptoir d’Exportation des Produits Métallurgiques.
Comptoir Métallurgique de Longwy, and Comptoir d’Exportation
 des Fontes de Meurthe-et-Moselle.—These combinations,
located in the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, are the oldest and

L De Leener, op. cit, Vol. I, pp. 120, 121.
® Ibid, p. 122.
311bid., p. 123.
¢ Statistical abstract for the principal and other foreign countries (London), 1914.
No. 39, p. 149.
97941° _18— 18