28 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.

In middle and south Germany, in the entire Elbe River Valley,
English coal predominates owing to the cheap transportation afforded
 by the highly developed Elbe waterway. On the Hamburg
coal market in 1910 the total English coal import was 4,881,000 tons,
3,200,000 tons of which belonged to the Syndicate. English coal
secured a foothold in south Germany in 1906-7, when the sudden
demand of the German industry wo not be supplied with Ruhr
coal and the Syndicate was obliged to furnish English coal. Many
industries changed their grates to burn English coal, and never went
back to the Coal Syndicate. The English coal also passes directly
through the Ruhr istrict on the Rhine to Mannheim and is rehandled
 there for Bavaria. The movement of English coal on the Rhine
upstream at Emmerich was, in 1904, 125,121 tons; in 1906, 525,000
tons; in 1907, 1,658,000 tons; in 1910, 676,000 tons.
The dyestuff trust has purchased a coal mine, not for the coal-tar
prods but for fuel in order to assure a uniform quality and to
e independent of the Syndicate. If this idea spreads, it might break
up the Syndicate.
The Braunkohlensyndikat.—The most important competition aside
from those mentioned in connection with the Ruhr district itself is
to be found in the Brown Coal Syndicate. Calculating the calories
 of brown coal at only one-third of those of the bituminous coal
of the Ruhr district, the brown-coal production has reached 5 per
cent of the entire Ruhr-coal production. The production has increased
 as follows: 1885, 860,000 tons; 1890, 662,000 tons; 1895,
1,682,000 tons; 1900, 5,167,000 tons; 1905, 6,181,000 tons; 1910,
13,086,000 tons. The members of the Braunkohlensyndikat are
Braunkohlen &amp; Brikettwerke Roddergrube, quota 1,100,000 tons;
Rheinsche A.-G. fiir Braunkohlen-Bergbau und Brikettfabrikation,
 quota 1,600,000 tons. These two firms represent 63 per cent of
the entire brown-coal production. The other 17 plants divide the
remaining 37 per cent. There are 9 small outsiders who produce
brown coal, but 6 of these sell their coal to the Syndicate. The sales
organization of the Brown Coal Syndicate is called the Braunkohlen-Brikettverkaufsverein
 in Cologne. This selling office carries on an
active advertising campaign, the words “Ilse Briketts” or “ Kaiser
Briketts” confronting the eye on street cars and subway. In addition
 the sales office maintains a large staff of engineers who are experts
 in the fuel problem, who study the burning of brown coal and
the new uses to which it may be put. They not only advise customers
 as regards the proper mechanical arrangements for burning
brown coal, but go into the plants of the customers and work with
them, free of charge, until the proper results have been attained.
The Braunkohlenverein has purchased about 2,000,000 marks worth
of new brown-coal fields; in addition, it has acquired the shares of
nominally independent collieries.
The Upper Silesian Coal Convention (Die Oberschlesische Kohlenkonvention).—This
 organization, founded in 1890, is hardly to
be regarded as a competitor of the Coal Syndicate, except perhaps
in a certain neutral zone where the two separate fields of activity
come together. The Silesian coal is used for the large Silesian industry
 and the district traversed by the River Oder, which affords
the necessary cheap water transportation. The Upper Silesian Coal