270 
INTERNATIONAL TRADE 
low the German Treasury operations in any detail. Considerable 
sums were used in clearing away left-over charges of the war, in 
building fortresses in Alsace-Lorraine, in “re-establishing” the 
navy, in providing pension funds for the disabled. More important 
were distributions to the old North German Confederation for 
paying off its debts — largely for loans and expenses of the war — 
and similar payments to the other States which were now united in 
the Empire. After these allotments for debt-payments had been 
made, still further distributions seem to have been made to the 
several States. Even so, the Imperial Treasury for years con- 
tinued to have large funds in its hands, and invested them in 
various ways — in German securities, foreign securities, time bills 
of exchange on London, deposits in foreign banks. Concerning the 
significance of the last named types of investment something more 
will be said presently. 
What now did the German people get — the German economic 
body, as distinguished from the Imperial Treasury ? 
To some moderate extent Germany got goods at once, an 
excess of imports. Just how much came to her in this way cannot 
be accurately ascertained. During the period after 1871 Germany 
showed an excess of imports over exports. The excess was no 
doubt greater than that which had probably appeared even before 
1870; there was a net accretion in the merchandise account. But 
the statistics of foreign trade for the Zollverein, and even those of 
the first years of the Empire, are so untrustworthy that nothing 
exact can be made out. What alone appears clearly is that the 
excess of imports was moderate, and that, during the years in which 
France wound up her part in the operations, no large amounts 
reached Germany in this way. It was not in the concrete shape of 
goods, wares, and merchandise that the German people got the 
indemnity; certainly not so during the period when France was 
paying it. 
A larger part was played by securities. If the German people 
had countered exactly on the French — if they had bought 
securities abroad precisely as the French sold securities abroad — 
the operations would have offset each other. The Germans would