256 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.

it can easily be divided up. In Brazil, for instance, there is a very decided
pro-American feeling. We do not need to meet German competition in Brazil—
not always. On the other hand, in Argentina, where there is so much German,
English, and Italian capital, we absolutely have to meet competition.
W. L. Saunders, chairman of the board of the Ingersoll-Rand Co.
manufacturers of mining machinery, New York City, referred to
an address made by him at the Second National Foreign Trade
Convention, in which he said:

A further and very practical reason for encouraging and freeing American
merchants in the export trade is the fact that our strongest foreign competitors
not only do this, but, through a system of cartels, which aré really tradeunions
 among merchants, combinations antagonistic to the United States exist.
Cartels are permitted in England, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal,
Spain, Russia, Switzerland, Scandinavia, and even in some of the Balkan
States. -
The effect of these cartels and combinations is that the prices at which
American goods may be sold in certain foreign markets are fixed through combinations
 of foreign buyers. * * *
In Germany there has existed for a long period a system of bounties, used in
connection with the cartels, to encourage export trade.
Fy -*

“In consequence of lower export prices of steel in Germany, cartel export
bounties were paid from time to time to such of their customers as were enraged
 in export trade. This practice extended back to 1891 in the iron trade.
The significance of the export bounty system became greater during the period
of depression following the crisis of 1900, and it resulted in an extension of
the bounty system. In 1902 it was scientifically and systematically organized
by the establishment of an “ export accounting office” in which the coal, coke,
pig-iron, half-products, and beam cartels united to pay export bounties to each
other and to the mills which made and exported the finer products.” (Francis
Walker, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1906.)
ik

The stronger cartels in Germany maintain a firm export policy. They make
a practice of exporting at lower prices than are charged home consumers,
finding foreign markets an excellent outlet for excess production, particularly
when the home market is poor. The cartels in the mining and iron industries
have been forced to assist their customers, who have combined for self-defense,
hy granting rebates on exports of goods manufactured from raw and semimanufactured
 products. The coal syndicate allows 13% marks per metric ton
upon fuel produced from the syndicate and used in the production of iron
which is exported. This bounty came into operation in 1913. The pig-iron
syndicate grants a bounty on pig iron purchased from it and used to manufacture
 articles for export. This bounty, together with the coal bounty, amounts
to 4% marks per metric ton.
The rolled-wire syndicate has increased its export bounties so that they
now amount to 11% marks per metric ton of raw material used in the case of
ironware and of wire goods made from rolled wire, and to 164 marks for material
 used for wire tacks.
Even in the liquor industry the State grants a refund of the internal-revenue
tax on spirits exported, and there are syndicated industries in this business
which reimburse their members for loss sustained in making sales abroad at
iower prices than were obtainable at home.
oe

"

Evidence has been given that German manufacturers went so far as to even
secure rebates on freight for goods delivered at the seaboard for export, and
German cooperation and concentration have extended to securing information
from invoices and shipping papers where American goods were shipped on German
 vessels to countries other than Germany.
M. C. Parsons, the president of the Parsons Trading Co., New
York City, said:

The Verband Deutscher Dachpappenfabrikanten, for example, in Germany,
places a large part of their products—I am talking now about news paper—I