SPECIAL REPORTS FOR FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION.
ComBINATIONS IN THE COAL, IRON, AND STEEL INDUSTRIES.

5

The three important industries, coal, iron, and steel, are organized
n the three great combines, the Rheinisch-Westfilische Kohlensynlikat
 at Essen, Roheisenverband, and Stahlwerksverband at Diisseldorf,
 each representing a combination which amounts practically to
a monopoly. Grouped around these combinations and closely allied
with them, through direct agreements or contracts, are numerous
other rings, syndicates, and cartels. In considering these three combines
 in detail it is necessary to have in mind the lesser organizations
which are subsidiary to them and have a constant bearing on their
operations. The three named leading combines controlling coal,
iron, and steel are not trusts in the American sense, inasmuch as the
firms which make up these syndicates are bound together and to the
incorporated selling company by contract only. They have not sold
out their property rights in any manner, and remain independent
firms, the personal property of individuals or families or stock companies,
 and may at any time at the expiration of the contract secede
from the combination and even destroy the union by failing to join it
again. The large family estates in particular lay great stress upon
their individual family character and could not be moved in any
way to give up these family properties as would happen on selling
out to a stock company or trust. The feudalistic organization is,
however, gradually disappearing and the family estates are becoming
 stock companies which are more amenable to amalgamation.
Cartels in general fall into two classes. The cartels of the first
class are those having a central organization with a selling office. In
addition to coal, iron, and steel there are first-class cartel combines
tor shipbuilding steel, sheet iron, tinplate, rolled wire, wire cables,
woven wire, steel springs, car parts, and cast-iron pipe, also many
dealers’ cartels or unions which will be discussed ol selling methods.
 Some of the iron industries which are organized under the second
 class of cartels or those loose combines without a central selling
organization are the malleable iron, weld iron, band iron, wire ware,
screws, cast-iron ware, building hardware, and pipe strips.
All these lesser combines are closely interrelated with the three
big combines controlling coal, iron, and steel, but the dominating
force over all is exercised by the Steel Works Union (Stahlwerks
Verband) from its great headquarters, the Stahlhof in Diisseldort.
The steel industries and the Steel Works Union Company. —Before
entering into the discussion of the Steel Works Union lin it is
advisable to have in mind a few of the lesser combinations so closely
associated with it and which in practice, although not legally, are
branches of it.
Some of the most important combinations related to the steel industry
 are the following:
Schiffsbaustahlkontor (Shipbuilding Steel Office), which has been
continued for another three years from December, 1912, was founded,
1908, by a number of leading steel plants to make it possible to
deliver shipbuilding materials to the growing German shipbuilding
 industry. The German shipyards, situated on the coast and being
free from any duties on shipbmilding materials, were in a position to
purchase shipbuilding supplies from England more cheaply than