ABSTRACT
The last chapter of the book discusses the implementation of the ETEC: how the timber regulation scheme worked and how the cartel organisation nationally and internationally responded to problems like depression and overproduction. The ETEC ended with the outburst of World War II in autumn 1939, but this chapter argues that the timber cartel was at that time already at the brink of collapse. The crumbling of the ETEC started with the depression of 1937–1938 and accelerated with the growing of war preparations around Europe. Austria and Czechoslovakia resigned from the ETEC in 1938 due to German invasion. This chapter discusses how the persistent unwillingness of the Finnish firms to regulate their output according to international timber cartel rules—which had been prevailing since 1931—gradually became an overwhelming task for the Finnish ETEC organisation to fight against. Finland overproduced almost every year but in the public managed to hide it in cartel maths.
