It was the knowledge that her supplies would largely end from the moment she came into the war that drove Italy to make all the purchases she could during the past nine months, Even so she could not do all that she wished. Her credit abroad was bad, and she had to draw heavily upon her resources of gold and her foreign exchange, leaving herself only 100,000,000 dollars in gold and 38,000,000 dollars in foreign exchange. Gaps have been left in her purchases: and at home, in spite of her tremendous drive for production, she could not overcome the natural deficiencies of the country. Her own coal deposits, for example, are negligible. She has to import 12,000,- 000 tons a year for her metallurgical, chemical, ànd other industries, and for her railways, of which only a third run on hydro-electric power and which in times of dry weather (as at present) have to go largely on coal.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.