Leaving on one side for the present the items of pensions and allowances and loans to Belgium, let us examine the data relating to the material damage in Northern France. The claims made by the French Government did not vary very much from the spring of 1919, when the Peace Conference was sitting, down to the spring of 1921, when the Reparation Commission was deciding its assessment, though the fluctuations in the value of the franc over that period cause some confusion. Early in 1919 M. Dubois, speaking on behalf of the Budget Commission of the Chamber, gave the figure of 65 milliard francs “as a minimum,” and on February 17, 1919, M. Loucheur, speaking before the Senate as Minister of Industrial Reconstruction, estimated the cost at 75 milliards at the prices then prevailing. On September 5, 1919, M. Klotz, addressing the Chamber as Minister of Finance, put the total French claims for damage to property (presumably inclusive of losses at sea, etc.) at 134 milliards. In July 1920 M. Dubois, by that time President of the Reparation Commission, in a Report for the Brussels and Spa Conferences, put the figure at 62 milliards on the basis of pre–war prices.[63] In January 1921 M. Doumer, speaking as Finance Minister, put the figure at 110 milliards. The actual claim which the French Government submitted to the Reparation Commission in April 1921 was for 127 milliard paper francs at current prices.[64] By that time the exchange value of the franc, and also its purchasing power, had considerably depreciated, and, allowing for this, there is not so great a discrepancy as appears at first sight between the above estimates.