CONDITIONS IN PARTICULAR INDUSTRIES. 273

New devices and different purposes served by electrical energy are
matters of frequent discovery. With the inevitable accumulation
and multiplication of these the electrical industry looks forward to
oreat future expansion.
The utilization of electricity, however, from its very earliest praetical
 application has been associated with colossal investments of
capital. So its extension broadcast, the dissemination of its bene-~
fits, has meant that financial initiative must keep pace with inventive
genius.
The ultimate conversion of electric energy for every need is continsent
 on the cost of its production and efficiency of distribution.
Hydroelectric generation at natural sources has solved one phase of
the problem, and alone has been responsible for the shifting or crea~
sion of entire communities. Science is directing its efforts toward
achieving the economical transmission of high voltage over long distances,
 and this obstacle to the diffusion of cheap power must yield
in time. The location of natural water power in export markets,
therefore, is an index of electrical trade routes of the future.
German and British competition is the most serious encountered by
American manufacturers in the electrical export trade.
Even the greater American companies are not on an equal plane
with the German or British system of merchandising, and can not
avail themselves of the same opportunities offered for the creation of
mark ts. The smaller, detached American concerns, of course,
occupy a still more difficult position in contending with the German
and British organizations.
The salient facts concerning the organization of the industry in
these two countries particularly with reference to export trade. are
discussed briefly herewith.

GERMANY.

Centralization through communities of interest.—From its inception,
the German electrical industry has tended to concentrate in large
groups or communities of interest rather than in cartels. The chief
obstacles that made it difficult to organize cartels were a lack of
uniformity and homogeneity of the various plants and enterprises,
as well as the diversity of interests. The problem of raw materials,
labor, transportation, and lack of geographical concentration also to
a degree made the formation of cartels difficult and largely impossible.!

Two great companies, the Allgemeine Elektricitits-Gesellschaft,
called A. E. G., and the Siemens-Schuckert, called Siemens in the
trade, have succeeded in concentrating about 80 per cent of the
sntire electrical business of Germany into their own hands. Of this
- “UE. Noother, Vertrustung u. Momomolirage in der deutschen Elektricitits Industrie, 1913 p. 66fal,
97941°—-16——19