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Rh on, during this crisis, the collapse of unimportant firms and their absorption by the large ones. "The banks," writes Jeidels, "refused a helping hand to the companies which needed it most—bringing on, after a frenzied boom, the inevitable failure of the companies which were not closely enough attached to them."

After 1900, concentration in Germany proceeded as a result by leaps and bounds. Up to 1900, there had been seven or eight groups in the electrical industry. Each was formed of many companies—amounting altogether to twenty-eight—and each was supported by from 2 to 11 banks. Between 1908 and 1912 all the groups were united into two, or possibly one. This shows the process:

The famous A.E.G. (General Electrical Company), thus constituted, controls 175 to 200 companies (through shares) and directs altogether a capital of 1,500,000,000 marks. Abroad, it has 35 direct representatives of which twelve are joint stock companies, in more than ten States. In 1904, German capital, invested in the electric industry abroad, was already estimated at 233,000,000 marks. Of this sum, 62 millions were invested