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REPARATION

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supply of foodstuffs. 1 Estimating the tonnage ofGerman shipping to be taken over under the Treatyat 4,000,000 gross tons, and the average value perton at £30 per ton, the total money value involvedis £120,000,000. 2

(c) Foreign Securities. —Prior to the census offoreign securities carried out by the German Govern-ment in September 1916, 3 of which the exact resultshave not been made public, no official return of suchinvestments was ever called for in Germany, andthe various unofficial estimates are confessedly based

1 The Allies made the supply of foodstuffs to Germany during theArmistice, mentioned above, conditional on the provisional transfer to themof the greater part of the Mercantile Marine , to be operated by them for thepurpose of shipping foodstuffs to Europe generally, and to Germany in par-ticular. The reluctance of the Germans to agree to this was productive oflong and dangerous delays in the supply of food, but the abortive Con-ferences of Treves and Spa (January 16, February 14-16, and March 4-5,1919) were at last followed by the Agreement of Brussels (March 14, 1919).The unwillingness of the Germans to conclude was mainly due to the lackof any absolute guarantee on the part of the Allies that, if they surrenderedthe ships, they would get the food. But assuming reasonable good faith onthe part of the latter (their behaviour in respect of certain other clauses ofthe Armistice, however, had not been impeccable and gave the enemy somejust grounds for suspicion), their demand was not an improper one; forwithout the German ships the business of transporting the food wouldhave been difficult, if not impossible, and the German ships surrendered ortheir equivalent were in fact almost wholly employed in transporting foodto Germany itself. Up to June 30, 1919, 176 German ships of 1,025,388gross tonnage had been surrendered to 'the Allies in accordance with theBrussels Agreement.

2 The amount of tonnage transferred may be rather greater and the valueper ton rather less. The aggregate value involved is not likely, however,to be less than £100,000,000 or greater than £150,000,000.

3 This census was carried out by virtue of a Decree of August 23, 1916.On March 22, 1917, the German Government acquired complete controlover the utilisation of foreign securities in German possession ; and inMay 1917 it began to exercise these powers for the mobilisation of certainSwedish, Danish, and Swiss securities.

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