An examination of the import list shows that 63.6 per cent are raw materials and food.  The chief items of the former class, namely, cotton, wool, copper, hides, iron-ore, furs, silk, rubber, and tin, could not be much reduced without reacting on the export trade, and might have to be increased if the export trade was to be increased.  Imports of food, namely, wheat, barley, coffee, eggs, rice, maize, and the like, present a different problem.  It is unlikely that, apart from certain comforts, the consumption of food by the German laboring classes before the war was in excess of what was required for maximum efficiency; indeed, it probably fell short of that amount.  Any substantial decrease in the imports of food would therefore react on the efficiency of the industrial population, and consequently on the volume of surplus exports which they could be forced to produce.  It is hardly possible to insist on a greatly increased productivity of German industry if the workmen are to be underfed.  But this may not be equally true of barley, coffee, eggs, and tobacco.  If it were possible to enforce a regime in which for the future no German drank beer or coffee, or smoked any tobacco, a substantial saving could be effected.  Otherwise there seems little room for any significant reduction.

The following analysis of German exports and imports, according to destination and origin, is also relevant.  From this it appears that of Germany’s exports in 1913, 18 per cent went to the British Empire, 17 per cent to France, Italy, and Belgium, 10 per cent to Russia and Roumania, and 7 per cent to the United States; that is to say, more than half of the exports found their market in the countries of the Entente nations.  Of the balance, 12 per cent went to Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria, and 35 per cent elsewhere.  Unless, therefore, the present Allies are prepared to encourage the importation of German products, a substantial increase in total volume can only be effected by the wholesale swamping of neutral markets.

GERMAN TRADE (1913) ACCORDING TO DESTINATION AND ORIGIN.

----------------------+--------------------+-----------

---------
|   Destination of   |     Origin of
|  Germany’s Exports |  Germany’s Imports
----------------------+--------------------+----------------

----
|  Million  Per cent |  Million  Per cent
|  Dollars           |  Dollars
Great Britain         |   359.55    14.2   |   219.00     8.1
India                 |    37.65     1.5   |   135.20     5.0
Egypt                 |    10.85     0.4   |    29.60     1.1
Canada                |    15.10     0.6   |    16.00     0.6
Australia             |    22.10     0.9   |    74.00     2.8
South Africa          |    11.70     0.5   |    17.40     0.6
|   ------    ----   |   ------    ----
Total:  British Empire |   456.95    18.1   |   491.20    18.2
|                    |
France                |   197.45     7.8   |   146.05     5.4
Belgium               |   137.75     5.5   |    86.15     3.2