CONDITIONS IN PARTICULAR INDUSTRIES, f = Uni-- 20,7 ’
i .—. . Hag
second half. In this way the smaller concerns were a 8,of Hil of &amp;
the business and were enabled to develop. No NA Oo placed,
on production, the surplus being thrown upon the fore. dy”
By 1909 there were several concerns which were not membelSoftie
association, because unwilling to adhere to the fixed prices and limit
their domestic sales.
In recent years the Belgian natural cement has been a strong competitor
 of the Portland cements of Belgium and Germany, because
it could be produced so cheaply. German factories carried on a
systematic campaign against the use of natural cement and particularly
 against its being packed in old Portland cement sacks.!
OTHER COUNTRIES.

A
oo

At least one combination in this industry exists in France, the
Société anonyme des ciments francaise.! The cement industry in
Sweden is controlled largely by syndicates? Since the beginning
of the present war this country has become a much more active competitor
 in the sale of cement to the South American countries. Combinations
 exist among the producers of cement in Russia, Switzerland,
 Italy, and other countries, but these countries are not serious
competitors of the United States.

INTERNATIONAL COMBINATIONS.

Before the war the South German syndicate (see Pt. IT, p. 42) had an
agreement with the Rhenish-Westphalian and the Belgian syndicates
not to compete in each other's territory. All three syndicates jointly
organized the ‘‘ Vereinigte Deutsch-Belgische Zementfabriken” in
1905 for supplying the Dutch market, Holland possessing no cement
industry of its own. The South German syndicate received 42.8
per cent of the Dutch sales, the Rhenish-Westphalian 24.2 per cent,
and the Belgian 33 per cent. As a guaranty of good faith each of
the three syndicates deposited 10,000 florins with the central concern
 at Rotterdam. A fine of 10 marks per ton was imposed for
every ton sold contrary to the convention, the minimum fine being
1,000 marks.
This combination developed into the first general international
cement convention; it was joined after a time by the English cement
trust, the Société Anonyme des Ciments Francaise, of Paris, and the
Norwegian Portland cement works of Christiania.®* The continuance
of such an organization was reported in the Wirtschaftliche Chronik
for February, 1914, as follows: ‘Between the German, Belgian,
English, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian cement syndicates an

1 Pt. II, p. 4.
2 See pp. 158-159.
+E, Madelung, Die Entwicklung d. Deutschen Portland-Zement Industrie (Leipsic), 1913, pp. 41, 47,
rand G. Da Leaner, L’Oreanisation Syndicale des Chefs d’Industrie (Brussels), 1909, vol, 1, pp. 191-106.