iv THE REPARATION BILL 115

mitted by Belgium , for property, shipping, civiliansand prisoners (that is to say, the aggregate claim apartfrom pensions and allowances), amounted to 34,254million Belgian francs. Inasmuch as the Belgian Ministry of Finance, in an official survey published in1913, estimate the entire wealth of the country at29,525 million Belgian francs, it is evident that, evenallowing for the diminished value of the Belgian franc, which is our measuring rod, this claim is verygrossly excessive. I should guess that the degreeof exaggeration is quite as great as in the case ofFrance .

The British Empire claim is, apart from pensionsand allowances, almost entirely in respect of shippinglosses. The tonnage lost and damaged is definitelyknown. The value of the cargoes carried is a matterof difficult guesswork. On the basis of an average of£30 for the hull and £40 for the cargo per gross tonlost, I estimated the claim in The Economic Conse-quences of the Peace (p. 121) at £540,000,000. Theactual claim lodged was for £767,000,000. Much de-pends on the date at which the cost of replacementis calculated. Most of the tonnage was in fact re-placed out of vessels the building of which commencedbefore the end of the war or shortly afterwards, andthus cost a much higher price than prevailed in, e.g.,1921. But even so the claim lodged is very high.It seems to be based on an estimate of £100 per grosston lost for hull and cargo together, any excess in