260 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.

to us as though this copper market is not very strong. We will sell 10,000
tons or 20,000 tons in the London market, and start out, and every day for a
week we will sell 1,000, 1,500, or 2,000 tons, and break the price five or six or
seven pounds a ton ’—it is quoted in pounds per ton—* and when we get down to
the bottom some manufacturer, or some producer here who has got a considernble
 stock of copper and who is commencing to borrow money, will begin to get
aneasy.” The price has been going down right along, and one day some representative
 of this foreign group—and this happens regularly-—calls him up
on the telephone and says, “ What will you take for 15,000 or 20,000 tons of
copper ? —maybe 10,000 tons or 5,000 tons—but a large block of copper. If
they can not buy a good quantity, they go around to the other producers and
buy what they can. They have sold this copper short; they did not actually
jeliver any copper against those sales they made of 10,000 or 15,000 or 20,000
fons... Then, having bought a large quantity of copper from American producers,
who are the only people who have any large quantity to sell, they start in and
buy back that copper and cover their shorts; and by the time they get it back
they have got the price back to where it started; and the copper they bought
from here they sell at that price. You see, it is a very nice transaction. That
is what we termed in the days when we were “ trapping,” catching them coming
and going. But that is what they do. I don’t know what would happen to a group
of copper producers who tried to protect themselves in this country, The thing
has often been talked about, but we have all got too much sense to try to do it.
But if a group of copper producers, seeing this thing going on right along,
should get together and say, “ Now, when they sell that 10,000, 15,000, or 20,000
tons of copper in the market, we will buy it and divide it among ourselves,
proportionately,” * * *
Asher Miner, president of the National Association of White Corn
Millers. Cincinnati, Ohio. said:
Normally the greatest foreign consumption of hominy feed is in Germany,
where they are better informed of its value than elsewhere, and where it is
known as “ Maizfutter.” The important importers of this feed in Germany are
only three or four in number and they work in close conjunction with each
other, undoubtedly with the encouragement and support of their Government,
50 that there is practically only one association of buyers which controls the
jemand and the price paid. !
J. H. Genung, sales manager of the American Hominy Co., In-Jdianapolis.
 Ind., was of the same opinion, and said:

For instance, you take one branch of our business, hominy feed, and’ there
is a considerable demand for that—100,000 or 150,000 tons—in Holland and
Scandinavian countries, and in England, Germany—principally in Germany.
Our observation has been, personally and otherwise, that while there are
three or four importers in Germany, when it comes to making a price they
pretty nearly know what they do, and it is done by and with the consent of
the Rovernment.

John Crosby, of the Washburn-Crosby Co., Minneapolis, Minn.,
was asked whether there were common buying agencies abroad which
treated with American millers in the purchase of flour. He replied:

There has never been, at least until this war condition. Now it is common
report, and we have seen it in the papers, that this buying of flour will perhaps
be concentrated. But so far as our company knows that has not happened yet.
It may happen on this new crop, but we have not the evidences of it yet.
Of course this is true, that the various Governments have bought in this
market, and they may supplant individual buyers, and to that extent it may be
done.

Joseph N. Teal, counsel of the West Coast Lumber Manufacturers’
Association, Portland, Oreg., made the following statement in regard
to buying combinations in Australia:
I would like to have the time to tell you of the conditions that we meet
with, or that we believe we meet with, in Australia. It is all subject to con-