French markets, while maintaining free access to German markets from the Lorraine producers. During the war, the scarcity of steel enhanced the power of the Committee. By the end of the war it was running a system of steel producer levies and subsidies to counterbalance differences in costs between the producers, and this system continued for a short time after the Armistice of 11 November 1918. Inter-war period When censorship was relaxed after the war there were bitter complaints against the Comité des forges within and outside Parliament. It was said that the Comité des forges had allowed France to fall behind in industrialization before the war, and that the Comité des forges had colluded with the army to prevent bombing of the French steel works in the Briey region that had been taken by the Germans early in the war. The general secretary Robert Pinot defended himself and the steel masters, but the suspicion lingered and the Comité des Forges was attacked by the Left throughout the years that followed. A shift of power within heavy manufacturing was underway during the interwar years as new industries such as car and airplane manufacture grew in importance, often with interests in conflict with the steel makers. In December 1918 the Comité des forges created the Comptoir sidérurgique de France, which allocated quotas to members of the steel cartel. During the war the government had run the National Coal Bureau with a system under which small steel producers who could not get cheap domestic coal were subsidized in buying more expensive imports. After the war the Comité des forges president François de Wendel asked that this function be transferred to a consortium organized by the Committee. The small producers were opposed to this measure, which seemed likely to confirm the advantage of the large companies. In 1923 the Comité des forges asked for either a customs barrier between the Ruhr and Germany so that the French steel producers could get cheaper coal than the Germans, or else a takeover of the German coal mines, which would be leased to the French steel producers. In the post-war period the Union des industries et métiers de la métallurgie (UIMM) acted in effect as the instrument of the Comité des forges for handling social issues. In 1919 Robert Pinot was secretary of both organizations. In 1921 Pinot asked Francois de Wendel to make him a