When the idea of a big steel combine was first conceived by Judge Gary, one of the chief considerations in his mind was that such a vast organization, and such an organization alone, would be able to offer battle to the manufacturers of the other great steel-producing nations--Great Britain, Germany, and Belgium--which were then practically without let or hindrance, dividing between them the markets of the world. The same thought was forcibly brought out by Charles M. Schwab at the Simmons dinner, and was one of the most powerful factors in influencing J. Pierpont Morgan to undertake the financing of the giant steel merger. Properly speaking, the development of the Corporation’s export trade did not begin until about two years after the big company was formed. Questions of internal organization were naturally paramount in the Corporation’s infancy, and the first few years were taken up with problems nearer home--physical organization, coördination, integration, efficiency, economies, in a word, the welding into a harmonious whole of the corporate organization and properties merged. Therefore, it was not until the early part of 1903, when internal problems had been gotten out of the way, that the question of securing export business on a more systematic and profitable basis was actively considered and steps taken toward the formation of an organization with a definite export plan and policy. To do this, it was necessary to bring together, to consolidate, the export offices and organizations of the several subsidiary companies which had until that time been maintained on a practically independent basis. This was done by creating a new company, the United States Steel Products Export Co. (the “Export” was later dropped from the title), late in 1903. The first organized efforts of the Corporation to obtain export business may thus be said to have begun with the calendar year 1904. How beneficial was the coördination of the export trade of the various constituent companies into one selling agency is forcibly illustrated by the fact that the cost of doing export business has been reduced from about 8 per cent. of gross, which it was when each company sold independently, to something under 1 per cent. in recent years. As the Corporation’s foreign sales in the past few years have averaged more than $160,000,000, this has meant an annual saving of between $11,000,000 and $12,000,000, or nearly a half year’s dividends on its preferred stock. The lower selling cost also meant that the position of the Corporation bidding against foreign competition has been improved, and to that factor must be attributed largely the increase in the Corporation’s export business.