CONDITIONS IN PARTICULAR INDUSTRIES. 241
GREAT BRITAIN.

The North British Locomotive Co. (Ltd.) was formed in 1903 by
three former competitors and capitalized in 1918 at over $8,500,000.
This combination, together with five other works, handles nearly
the whole private production of British locomotives. As the British
railway companies, however, build and repair most of their own rolling
 stock, the private makers of locomotives and cars are dependent
principally upon the export trade and private owners, such as
ironworks, collieries, etc.! Another amalgamation is the Metropolitan
 Carriage, Wagon, and Finance Co. (I.td.), formerly called the
Metropolitan Amalgamated Railway Carriage &amp; Wagon Co. (Ltd.),
formed in 1902 from five of the leading eompanies making railway
rolling stock for industrial plants and mainly for export. A few
months after its formation a blast furnace and steel-smelting concern
was added, enabling the company to make its own axles and tires. In
1913 it was capitalized at over $9,000,000.2 There is known to be
a very close and monopolistic combination among firms manufacturing
 cables for street railways, etc., and other railway equipment industries
 are understood to have a complete understanding as to
many important trade policies.
FRANCE

There is a French association, apparently composed of all the
manufacturers of locomotives, which fixes the prices on the various
types of locomotives which the railways, both State and privately
owned, must pay. Orders are apportioned among all of the manufacturers
 in proportion to their output. The association has had a
successful experience for 10 years. There is also a railway-materials
syndicate (“Chambre Syndicale des Fabricants et Constructeurs de
Matériel pour Chemins de Fer et Tramways”) which is one of the
principal constituents of the central organization of the metal industries
 (Union des Industries, Métallurgiques et Minidres. etc.)?
RIINQTA

As the Russian Government owns over two-thirds of the railroad
mileage of Russia, it 1s the largest single consumer of rails and rolling
 stock in the country, absorbing over 70 per cent of the output
of the car-building factories, locomotive works, and rail mills. It
permits to car-building works producing for export, free imvortation
 of the necessary raw materials.¢
1H. W. Macrosty, The Trust Movement in British Industry (London), 1907, pp. 51-52,
and H. Levy, Monopoly and Competition (London), 1911, p, 258.
2 Macrosty, op. cit, p. 52, and Stock Exchange Official Intelligence (1914), p. 776.
8 Archibald J. Wolfe, Commercial Organizations in France, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic
 Commerce, Special Agents Series No, 98 (1915), pp. 22-23.
+L. B. Kafengaus. Sindikaty wv russkoi zheleznol promyshlennosti (Moscow). 1910,
Pp. 142,
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