Although, as we have said, the characteristic note of our industrial demobilization abroad was outright cancellation of contracts and the payment of indemnities, the policy was not maintained consistently. There were several important exceptions, and one of these was the method adopted in terminating the British manufacture of artillery and shell for the A. E. F. The numerous orders, contracts, and agreements placed and made by the A. E. F. for the delivery of British artillery and ammunition were consolidated, on October 19, 1918, by Mr. Stettinius in conference with Mr. Winston Churchill, then the British Minister of Munitions, into a single formal agreement. In terminating this contract after the armistice Mr. Stettinius assumed that it would be better to accept completed guns and ammunition, even though these might be surplus above the future requirements of the Army, than to pay heavy cancellation indemnities and receive nothing in return. Artillery does not deteriorate rapidly, either materially or in design. The negotiations opened by Mr. Stettinius with the British Government looking to this end were picked up by the Liquidation Commission, which, in March, 1919, reached an agreement with the British that, in lieu of paying any cancellation damages, the United States would accept a limited quantity of _matériel_ completed after the armistice under the American contract. America accordingly accepted the post-armistice delivery of 498 British-made guns, ranging in model from 60-pounders to 8-inch howitzers, and 420,000 rounds of ammunition for them. For this _matériel_ the American Government paid £6,637,598. A most interesting negotiation conducted by the Liquidation Commission for the United States was that which wound up the tripartite international project for the construction of 36-ton tanks, better known as the Anglo-American Mark VIII tanks. France was originally a party to this transaction only to the extent of agreeing to provide a site for the assembling plant in France. England and the United States were equal partners in the enterprise, England supplying hulls and guns and America the power and traction. The French, however, were to be permitted to buy tanks at the partnership price; but the French at first did not ask for any, asserting that their own light tank production was sufficient for them. The plant was built at Châteauroux, Neuvy-Pailloux. About the time the project was getting well under way, heavier tanks began to demonstrate their effectiveness in the field; and then France insisted that, because her armies held the most front-line mileage, the most of the Anglo-American tanks to be built at the Châteauroux plant should be allotted to her. Reluctantly the British agreed that the first 1,200 tanks should be divided equally between France and the United States and that France should receive all of the next 300.