What do the expressions stated below mean? Thnak you for your help :)
What do the expressions stated below mean? The paragraph is a quote from The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham.
1) the laced-company system
2) within the pattern as had to be untangled from time to time

The laws of supply and demand should have enabled the more enterprising to organize commodity monopolies, but the world at large had become antagonistic to declared monopolies. However, the laced-company system really worked very smoothly without anything so imputable as Articles of Federation. The general public heard scarcely anything of such little difficulties within the pattern as had to be untangled from time to time. Hardly anyone heard of even the existence of Umberto Christoforo Palanguez, for instance. I only heard of him myself years later in the course of my work.

Question

What do the expressions stated below mean? Thnak you for your help :)
What do the expressions stated below mean? The paragraph is a quote from The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham.
1) the laced-company system
2) within the pattern as had to be untangled from time to time

The laws of supply and demand should have enabled the more enterprising to organize commodity monopolies, but the world at large had become antagonistic to declared monopolies. However, the laced-company system really worked very smoothly without anything so imputable as Articles of Federation. The general public heard scarcely anything of such little difficulties within the pattern as had to be untangled from time to time. Hardly anyone heard of even the existence of Umberto Christoforo Palanguez, for instance. I only heard of him myself years later in the course of my work.

Answer

The quote is actually "interlaced-company system". "Interlaced" means interwoven, which is used figuratively here to mean having many close connections. The whole paragraph refers to apparently separate companies working together to have an effective monopoly over some commodity, without this being able to be "imputed" to the companies by a declared association (Articles of Federation).
Michael is correct about the literal meaning of point 2, but the very formal tone is ironic, implying that the difficulties were probably not little, and that the manner by which they were untangled was probably either illegal or unethical. This is supported by the subsequent passage where a person is bribed to bring triffid seeds from Russia.

Answer

1. I have not seen this term before.  My guess is that it is a description for a system that has already been introduced in the book.  I read the book as a child and I can't remember now.

2. such little difficulties within the pattern as had to be untangled = 
the kinds of little difficulties within the pattern that had to be untangled

This usage of "such...as...." is very formal or literary.