analysis does not provide a satisfactory answer to the question as to how international cartels would have operated the thirties if collective political security had made governmental quantitative trade regulations and direct governmental conduct of foreign trade superfluous. Economic literature did not discuss the interaction of quantitative government trade controls and private marketing controls. Compartmentalized inquiry this respect may lead to somewhat unsatisfactory conclusions.27 a2 See Gottfried Haberler and Martin Hill, Quantitative Trade Controls, League of Nations, Geneva, 1943, entire. 27 Professor Jacob Viner his brief but comprehensive study, Trade Relations between Free-Market and Controlled Economies, League of Nations, Geneva, 1943, recognizes that in some important respects . . regulation of foreign trade by national cartels or trusts raises issues for other countries substantially similar to those arising out of the direct regulation or the actual conduct of foreign trade by governments. However, he did not treat that relationship greater detail because has been customary to treat the trust This content downloaded from 207.46.13.21 on Tue, 27 Sep 2016 04:04:17 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms INTERNATIONAL CARTELS IN POSTWAR WORLD 127 Case studies may show that though the principal patterns of domestic cartels did not change greatly between the periods broadly delineated by the two interwar decades, great changes did occur the patterns of international cartels (and of other international commodity controls) after 1930. The end of 1929 may be regarded as a break the development of international market controls. J. W. F. Rowe discussing the sudden and drastic fall prices at the end of 1929, remarks that this crisis caused the virtual breakdown of almost all the existing control schemes, and for a short time the spring of 1930 it looked as if the individualist laissez-faire system would be restored.28 Almost all international control schemes (especially, the greater part of the international cartels) which existed before 1930, were reshaped the second interwar decade. The extent of and the reasons for that transformation are provocative subjects for discussion; their treatment would enlarge the framework of this study considerably. Government influence European countries, including the United Kingdom, on policies of national groups international cartels became steadily stronger the late thirties. According to Professor Jacob Viner, is obvious from the record ... that when governments have shown interest the external operation of their private monopolistic organizations, they have done so much more often with the purpose and result of strengthening the monopoly position, internally as well as externally, of these organizations than to protect other sections of the community from exploitation by them.29 Any post-war consideration of cartel problems would have to delve as deeply as possible into the available records and into the political implications of this problem. Though there are no unambiguous, completely rational criteria of the divergence of interests between national cartels and other sections of the national community, a reasonable proof that a democratic government co-operates international economic dealings which exploit its own people, calls at least for the imperative should never happen again. If the records show such conduct of democratic government, it is time to tear down the democratic fagade of certain institutions and consider the substantial, if ugly, building behind them. Any thoroughgoing investigation of the influence of international cartels on world trade has to deal with the question of how the market for certain commodities and services would have operated the absence of private collective commodity controls. This has to be viewed the light of the alternative policies and cartel problem relation to international trade as a separate problem, and as the subject has an extensive literature of its own, it will not be dealt with here. (p. 71). In the opinion of this writer there is a scarcity of significant recent literature on that relationship. However, even the incidental treatment of private commodity controls Mr. Viner's study is important as a starting point for further investigations. It is instructive to look through a modern text-book about international economy (cf., e.g., John Parke Young, The Economy, New York, 1942) to ascertain the degree of attention devoted to international cartels university teaching. Concerning scarcity of literature about international marketing controls, see also, Joseph S. Davis, International Commodity Agreements the Postwar World, Amer. Econ. Review, 1942, Proceedings of the 54th meeting of the Am. Econ. Assoc. p. 400. 28 Cf. Markets and Men (Cambridge, England, 1936), p. 18. 29 Op. cit., p. 37. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.21 on Tue, 27 Sep 2016 04:04:17 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms