The disposal of surplus A. E. F. signaling equipment was notable in that it included a large sale to the French Government of equipment not embraced by the general bulk sale of 1919. When the armistice came the A. E. F. was provided with hundreds of miles of main-line telephone and telegraph cables, hooking up a complete net of branch lines, wires, and exchanges, all of it American-made and American-operated. The question was whether to rip it all out, after which it would be represented by some thousands of tons of junk, or to sell it intact as it was; and there was but one possible customer, the French Government, which monopolizes telegraph and telephone communication in France. Signal corps officers in France took up with the French Government, directly after the armistice, the question of the sale of these installations to France, and the negotiations were so well advanced in the spring of 1919, when the United States Liquidation Commission (which conducted the blanket sale) arrived, that the signal corps sale was specifically exempted from the bulk sale. France paid $6,400,000 for the installations. France and England jointly paid $130,000 for the American cross-Channel cable, laid with great difficulty (and at an approximate cost of $238,000) between Cackmere, England, and Cap d’Antifer, France.[13] Negotiations were also under way for the purchase by the French Government of a large quantity of American wire-system construction material, but this was finally included in the supplies delivered under the terms of the bulk sale. Sales to other governments and to individuals were small. MOTOR VEHICLES