SPECIAL REPORTS FOR FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION, 237
wholesale trade, started to sell direct to the retailers and are still
continuing this method.
This combination was sufficiently effective or objectionable to
cause public comment by the mayor. This official stated that many
lines of imports were sold at higher rates at East London than at
any other coastal port.
This office has received communications referring to the “merchants’
 ring,” but apart from the preceding statements, I have no
knowledge of affairs there.
Shipping combine—Prior to the war a combine known as the
Conference Lines controlled practically all South African trade
or rather that portion of it which was imported from Europe and
America. The German East African Line was not in this combine,
but it is probable that there was most of the time a working agreement
 between this company and the Conference Lines. To a more
limited extent this combine still exists, but apparently does not
entirely cover the produce export trade from South Africa. :
By a comparison of freight rates it may be readily seen that the
rates between England and South Africa are more favorable than
those quoted from New York to South Africa.

EGYPT.

pect report of Consul Arthur Garrels, Alexandria, Egypt, November 13,

The following report covers Egypt and the Soudan.
With the exception of cigarettes, the production of manufactured
articles of commerce holds a most unimportant place in the industrial
endeavor of Egypt. There is no manufacturing in the Soudan. All
products, except cigarettes, manufactured in Egypt are for local consumption.
 The manufactures comprise cigarettes, sugar, cotton
goods, paper, soap, beer, cottonseed oil, and are produced by only a
few plants for each article.
As far as can be learned there is only one combination or syndicate
 existing among manufacturers in Egypt.
The owners of the ice-producing plants in Alexandria have formed
a selling company through which all of their product is marketed—
“Glacieries Reunies d’Alexandrie.” The company confines its sales
to the city of Alexandria and adjacent territory. .
An agreement exists between all of the important raw-cotton
exporters (Egyptian cotton exports approximate $130,000,000 annually)
 and three steamship lines, i. e., Ellerman Line, Moss Line,
Prince Line.
In accordance with the pertaining agreement, which has been in
existence a number of years under annual renewal, the steamship
lines on their part agree (1) to transport raw cotton from Alexandria
to Liverpool during the cotton season, September 1, 1915, to August
31, 1916, for a fixed rate, (2) and bind themselves to have freight
room at the disposal of the shipper, always in desired quantities.
The shippers, on the other hand, agree to ship no cotton destined for
England and the United States by any other ships.
As far as can be learned there are no combinations of manufacturers
 foreign to Egypt which export products to Egypt, nor are