262 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.
In one month 528,000 kilograms were exported. The bounties were
continued in 1906 and 1907, at the end of which year business conditions
 were such that the cartel again suppressed them. The experience
 of the members of the cartel has been that frequently when the
bounties were cut off, the trade that they had succeeded in building
up under their influence was retained.!
In 1912 the fund which was established by the spinners to encourage
exports was not sufficient to make it worth while to export in large
quantities. The situation became crucial when the margin between
the raw material and the finished product was so slight that the
prices obtained abroad plus the bonus was equal to, if not better than,
the domestic price. The bonus fund was entirely exhausted early in
1913. A meeting was then held in Paris and plans for raising another
fund for premiums were perfected. The spinners formed a joint stock
company to continue for a period of three years. The capital stock of
the company is 414,000 francs, and the main office was located, prior
to the outbreak of the present war, at Roubaix, in the department
of Nord, a branch being established at Rouen? The comptoir controlled
 approximately 600,000 spindles, and in a period of five months
it exported more than 5,000,000 kilograms of cotton yarn, bounties
ranging from 10 to 15 centimes per kilogram being paid.?
The comptoir for cotton prints.—On January 20, 1913, the Comptoir
de Vente des Tissus Frangais Imprimés, a central selling agency for
French cotton print goods, was established for 20 years by seven of
the most important establishments at Rouen, Epinal, Bolbeck, and
Valenciennes. This is a selling bureau which takes the place of a
former comptoir that had been abandoned.*
Flax, hemp, and tow spinnings (Syndicat des Filatures de Lin, de
Chanvre et d’Etoupe de France).—The industry of spinning flax,
hemp, and tow in France is practically concentrated in the department
 of Nord, and therefore offers a situation favorable to the formation
 of a cartel. Organization among the spinners took place first in
1887, then in 1899, and finally in 1901. The cartel comprises ninetenths
 of the French spindles, or 450.000 out of the 500,000 in operation.

Like the cotton cartel, this organization resorted to chdmage and
axport bounties. In 1899 these latter had very important results, as
members were able to export one-sixth of what they manufactured.
For the quarter, June-August, 57,000 skeins of spinnings, the product
of about 40,000 spindles, were sent abroad, the bounty being 1 franc
per skein. Previously these French twists had been limited to the

1 Revue Economique Internationale, 1908, vol. 5, pp. 120-123, 131-134,
t Board of Trade Journal (London), June 13, 1913, p. 634; July-September, 1913, p. 484,
}Karteli-Rundschau, 1913, p. 420.
Tbid., p. 603.