The Australian colonies and probably others found that German financiers owned and controlled most of the mines when war broke out. It took some time to destroy this influence. Early in the war, British sentiment seemed to call for action against all such German commercial aggression, and at an Allied Economic Conference at Paris in June, 1916, plans were suggested for protection by tariff and exclusion of alien ownership in allied countries. More recently it seems that the British plan is to keep British certain key industries at all hazards and at any expense, but not to abandon free trade or in any way decrease the amount of trading done. Commercial control of the Welsh steam-coal export trade is largely in the hands of the Cambria Coal Combine, but in the trade there are several other large combinations. The anthracite industry of England is not as well organized as that of America. Commercial control of coal exported from Wales is largely in the hands of the large combinations of British shippers, in agreement with the Cambria. Even when the war interfered with shipping, it is estimated that two-thirds of the South American coal trade was in British control. Many instances of British financial control of coal in countries other than British colonies have not been noted. British capital is invested in a few mines in Siberia and there are extensive holdings in China. =Germany.=--The reserves of coal in Germany before the war were greater than those in England, counting possible reserves, and of fair quality. Germany formerly controlled 70 per cent. of the coal on the Continent. Austrian coal was controlled, and the coal of Spitzbergen has been claimed, though now in British and Norwegian control. Although the most important deposits of coking coal of the Continent are in Westphalia, those of Belgium and northern France are very important to a general control of the coal situation. It cannot be assumed that these important coal fields were seized by the Germans for other reasons, or that the Germans included coal and iron by accident. In 1911 the Rhenish Westphalian _Zeitung_ advised that French Lorraine and Luxemburg should be dominated as thoroughly as Westphalia was. In 1915 the six greatest associations of business men in Germany petitioned the Chancellor to consider the control of the coal (and iron) of northern France as a military as well as economic necessity. The annual production of coal in Germany before the war was about one-fifth of the world’s total output, closely approaching the production of Great Britain. In the first years of the war the coal output declined somewhat. In coal exports, Germany has been second only to the British Isles, but no country exports by sea one-sixth as much as Great Britain. Before the war Germany had established some fourteen “Kohlen depots” abroad and had a large amount of shipping. These bunkering ports were taken by the Allies.