It is also beyond doubt that with the great stocks available in Ukraine, an incomparably greater quantity could have been brought into Austria if the collecting and transport apparatus had worked differently.

The Secretary of State for Food Supplies has, at my request, in May, 1919, furnished me with the following statistical data for publication: 

  Brief survey of the organisation of corn imports from Ukraine (on
  terms of the Brest-Litovsk Peace) and the results of same: 

When, after great efforts, a suitable agreement had been arrived at with Germany as to the apportionment of the Ukrainian supplies, a mission was dispatched to Kieff, in which not only Government officials but also the best qualified and most experienced experts which the Government could procure were represented.

Germany and Hungary had also sent experts, among them being persons with many years of experience in the Russian grain business, and had been in the employ of both German and Entente grain houses (as, for instance, the former representative of the leading French corn merchants, the house of Louis Dreyfuss).

  The official mission arrived at Kieff by the middle of March, and
  commenced work at once.  A comparatively short time sufficed to
  show that the work would present quite extraordinary difficulties.

The Ukrainian Government, which had declared at Brest-Litovsk that very great quantities, probably about one million tons, of surplus foodstuffs were ready for export, had in the meantime been replaced by another Ministry.  The Cabinet then in power evinced no particular inclination, or at any rate no hurry, to fulfil obligations on this scale, but was more disposed to point out that it would be altogether impossible, for various reasons, to do so.

Moreover, the Peace of Brest had provided for a regular exchange system, bartering load by load of one article against another.  But neither Germany nor Austria-Hungary was even approximately in a position to furnish the goods (textiles especially were demanded) required in exchange.

We had then to endeavour to obtain the supplies on credit, and the Ukrainian Government agreed, after long and far from easy negotiations, to provide credit valuta (against vouchers for mark and krone in Berlin and Vienna).  The arrangements for this were finally made, and the two Central Powers drew in all 643 million karbowanez.

The Rouble Syndicate, however, which had been formed under the leadership of the principal banks in Berlin, Vienna and Budapest, was during the first few months only able to exert a very slight activity.  Even the formation of this syndicate was a matter of great difficulty, and in particular a great deal of time was lost; and even then the apparatus proved very awkward to work with.  Anyhow, it had only procured comparatively small sums of roubles,