The position of Germany with respect to foreign exchange is quite different than in 1914. Its gold reserve built up following the Franco-ian war of 1870 was entirely dissipated in that struggle. In recent years the country has been short of foreign exchange and has been able te carry on international commerce only largely through barter arrangements. As the war progresses and as the country's manufacturing industries probably will curtail other production to satisfy military requirements, the difficulty in obtaining supplies even from the near-by neutral nations will become greater.
In the World War many of these neutral nations did a thriving business with the Central Powers, which indirectly affected commodity' prices. However, Germany probably has made the greatest efforts of any nation to become self-sufficient with respect to necessities needed for wagling a war, and it probably will need While about 70 per cent. of the French iron and steel industry's coke consumption was met from home ovens in 1997, a representative year, almost half of the coal carbonized had to be imported.
Germany and Britain each supplied about 40 per cent. of the coking coal
cent. ps, ənd Belgium about 10 per Possibilities exist of partly bridging the gap by blending coking and noncoking coals, by economizing in the use of coke for non-metallurgical purposes and by replacing basic-Bessemer by open hearth steel, and so utilizing the surplus supplies of melting scrap.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.