ABSTRACT
The most effective and closely organised Kartells appear in those industries which produce goods capable of further manufacture; conspicuous examples are the mining industries and the heavy iron and steel industries. These enjoy natural protection from the high costs of transport, and are therefore able to form Kartells with a minimum of fear from foreign competition; also, a very important point, the standard specifications to which their produce must conform render them fit subjects for combination of the most advanced type. That complex Kartells are more attractive to producers than conventions of an elementary type is proved by the immediate success of the Rheinisch-Westfälische-Kohlensyndikat in 1893, after numerous attempts to regulate the coal industry by price and production conventions had failed. The initial trouble of the industry had been too confident a reliance upon increasing the export market, particularly in North Sea and Baltic ports; 54the Export Association, founded in 1877, proved inadequate to forecast the market, and, though it continued to exist until 1894, achieved little beyond securing preferential rates on German railways. In 1877, also, 90 per cent. of the producers agreed to curtail their output by ten per cent., but an attempt to double the reduction led to disagreement. A five per cent. reduction subsequently proved more successful, and was undertaken at intervals until 1891, when numerous secessions rendered it ineffective. A price convention, called the Zechengemeinschaft, proved inadequate, chiefly because of the difficulty of fixing prices for the different grades of coal. Finally, the Coke Syndicate, which had been founded in 1888 and established in double company form in 1890, was used as a model for the re-organisation of the coal industry, which has subsisted until the present day.
