Even though foreign trade is properly adjusted, and the country’s claims and liabilities on foreign account are in equilibrium over the year as a whole, it does not follow that they are in equilibrium every day. Indeed, it is well known that countries which import large quantities of agricultural produce do not find it convenient, if they are to secure just the quality and the amount which they require, to buy at an equal rate throughout the year, but prefer to concentrate their purchases on the autumn period.[37] Thus, quite consistently with equilibrium over the year as a whole, industrial countries tend to owe money to agricultural countries in the second half of the year, and to repay in the first half. The satisfaction of these seasonal requirements for credit with the least possible disturbance to trade was recognised before the war as an important function of international banking, and the seasonal transference of short-term credits from one centre to another was carried out for a moderate commission. [37] Whilst the fact of seasonal pressure is well ascertained, the exact analysis of it is a little complicated. Food arrivals into Great Britain, for example, are nearly 10 per cent heavier in the third and fourth quarters of the year than in the first and second, and reach their maximum in the fourth quarter. (These and the following figures are based on averages for the pre-war period 1901–1913 worked out by the Cambridge and London Economic Service). Raw material imports are more than 20 per cent heavier in the fourth and first quarters than in the second and third, and reach their maximum in the three months November to January. Thus the fourth quarter of the year is the period at which there are heavy imports of both food and raw materials. Manufactured exports, on the other hand, are distributed through the year much more evenly, and are about normal during the last quarter. Allowing for the fact that imports are paid for, generally speaking, before they arrive, these dates correspond pretty closely with the date at which seasonal pressure is actually experienced by the dollar-sterling exchange. In France, since the war, imports in the last quarter of the year seem to have been quite 50 per cent heavier than, for example, in the first quarter. In Italy the third quarter seems to be the slackest, and the last quarter, again, a relatively heavy period. When we turn to the statistics for the United States we find the other side of the picture. August and September are the months of heavy wheat export; October to January those of heavy cotton export. The strength of the dollar exchanges