The settlement with France for our use of her railroads during the war was so complicated that it would not be profitable to go into the details here. The intricacy of the problem was due to the fact that, while 2,000,000 Americans in France had used the French railroads for every transportation need,--and our forces fought farther from their expeditionary bases than did any other army in France,--we, in turn, had supplied to the French railroads locomotives, cars, crews, repairing, coal, track construction, and many other items. The Liquidation Commission itself did not attempt to go into these details, but turned the whole transaction over to a special section headed by Colonel F. A. Delano, the Deputy Director General of Transportation for the A. E. F., who had formerly been president of the Wabash Railroad and a member of the Federal Reserve Board. The upshot of the settlement was that we acknowledged a debt to France of 434,985,399.73 francs after all our claims had been set off against the French claim. The United States Liquidation Commission agreed to pay to the French Government the sum of 3,000,000 francs for port dues assessed against our vessels for their use of French ports during the war. When these and other subsidiary questions of settlement had been decided and the proper credits established by agreement in each instance, the United States Liquidation Commission took up the task of a general blanket settlement of the business relations between France and the United States during the war. This was a long and involved work; but, since the major items in the settlement had already been determined, there was little difficulty in securing an agreement. The General Settlement was dated November 25, 1919. It embraced all transactions between the two nations from April 6, 1917, to August 20, 1919, except (1) France’s purchases of our surplus military property, (2) the railroad transportation and the port dues settlements noted above, and (3) France’s claim arising from the overseas transportation of American troops in French transports. The sum total of the other claims showed that the United States owed France 1,488,619,027.52 francs and that France owed the United States $177,149,866.86. The rate of exchange and form of payment were left to future negotiations by the United States Treasury; but, assuming that francs were worth ten to the dollar, the net balance in favor of the United States was about $28,000,000.