Raw materials 5,003 1,518
Semi-manufactured goods 5,003 1,139
Manufactured goods 1,478 6,395

About one-fifth of the entire exports was in iron and machine products
(1,337 [mil.] articles in iron, 680 machines); 722 millions from
coal (as against imports of other qualities of 289), 658 millions
of chemical products and drugs, 446 from cotton, 298 paint, 290
techno-electrical productions, etc.

What goods can Germany give in payment of the indemnity? We have seen
how she has lost a very large part of her iron and a considerable
quantity of her coal.

All the economic force of Germany was based upon:

(a) The proper use of her reserves of coal and iron, which allowed
her to develop enormously those industries which are based on these
two elements.

(b) On her transport and tariff system, which enabled her to fight any
competition.

(c) On her potent overseas commercial organization.

Now, by effect of the treaty, these three great forces have been
entirely or in part destroyed.

What goods can Germany give in payment of the indemnity, and what
goods can she offer without ruining the internal production of the
Entente countries? Let us suppose that Germany gives machines,
colours, wagons, locomotives, etc. Then for this very fact the
countries of the Entente, already suffering by unemployment, would
soon see their factories obliged to shut down. Germany must therefore,
above all, give raw materials; but since she is herself a country that
imports raw materials, and has an enormous and dense population, she
is herself obliged to import raw materials for the fundamental needs
of her existence.

If we examine Germany's commerce in the five years prior to the
War--that is, in the five years of her greatest boom--we shall find
that the imports always exceeded the exports. In the two years before
the War, 1912 and 1913, the imports were respectively 10,691 and
10,770 millions, and the exports 8,956 and 10,097 millions. In some
years the difference even exceeded two milliards, and was compensated
by credits abroad, with the payment of freights and with the
remittances (always considerable) of the German emigrants. All this is
lost.

Exported goods can yield to the exporter a profit of, let us suppose,
ten, twelve, or twenty per cent. For the Allies to take an income from
the Custom returns means in practice reducing the exports. In fact,
in Germany production must be carried on at suc