Coal resources, along with other raw materials, have been influenced by some trade treaties. However, no permanent advantage in commerce has been secured to any nation by a trade treaty. Nearly all such treaties are made for short periods and renewed. If not satisfactory to one party they are soon corrected. Various informal or tacit agreements might be mentioned. When shipping was scarce during the war, England and the United States divided the coal business of South America according to the requirements of ship economy. Germany made agreements to send coal to Austria-Hungary and Switzerland during the period of the war. England had agreements with France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, these agreements changing with conditions, about supplies of English coal.
COMMERCIAL CONTROL
Although the ownership of mines in most countries is nominally open to citizens and aliens alike, exceptions and restrictions tend to keep the control in the hands of citizens. For example, it is impossible for foreigners to control any mining company in Japan. Concessions in Holland and the Dutch colonies are limited to Dutch subjects and in Bolivia to Bolivian citizens. The legislation suggested since the outbreak of the World War may develop a similar condition in the possessions of Great Britain and those of her allies.
In peace the relations of two countries may be largely determined by the ownership of property; owners of property in a foreign country may strongly influence the policy of the two governments toward each other. In emergencies, the political and the commercial control are put to the test, and there results either a deadlock or the victory of one over the other.
An important commercial relation exercising political influence is the incorporation of companies under the laws of different countries. Mining companies in China, like the Kailan Mining Administration, organize at Hong Kong to obtain British protection and are thus subject to British control, in spite of the fact that Belgian money finances the company. Some companies organized in Japan may also own Chinese coal mines.
As relatively few regions of the world have coal in excess of their own needs, the larger number are dependent on imports. If a country with coal controls also steamship lines, it may completely control the coal situation in the importing country. England, with about half the total world’s shipping and a good supply of seaport coal, has been in a position to dominate coal exports, even to handling the excess American coal. During the last three or four years the scarcity of shipping has given increased importance to American and Japanese shipping, but the English still exert a strong influence. Their docks and storage facilities are the best, and their ships are still numerous.
Railroad shipping rights over the National Lines in Mexico give a certain amount of control over the coal industry. The National Lines are state owned and have a special agreement giving trackage rights to two companies, the American Smelting and Refining Co., and the Peñoles Company, of German ownership. Since the Mexican railway service has been disturbed, the German company has been operating with cars and engines of its own. It has many coke ovens and large coal reserves, and has been the chief competitor of the American company in Mexican metallurgy.
No patent is likely to limit coal industries, except as regards the by-products of coke. Before the war, coal-tar products were largely developed by Germans, who patented their processes in many countries, but offered no such protection to foreign inventions by patents in Germany. They limited production chiefly to their German plants, and exported about $50,000,000 worth a year.
During the war, these patents in the United States were taken over by the Alien Property Custodian, and the American industries that sprung up in consequence may be permanently protected. Other allied countries took the same steps to free themselves from German control, which has retarded the development of the by-product coke industry in non-German countries.
In Germany the large mining companies generally own the coal rights. The only government that has mined coal on a commercial scale and for commercial purposes is Germany, and even there the government production covered only a small part of the total output of the German Empire. Mines of the Saar coal field and a group of mines in the Upper Silesian field owned by the Prussian government have been the only extensive state-operated mines of the world, and now, under the terms of the Treaty of Peace, the ownership of the Saar mines will pass to France. (The details are given on [p. 39]).