We are not yet ready, however, to determine the net financial result of the international war business relations in which America was a participant. There was still the money to be realized from the sale of our surplus military property abroad. It will be remembered that one of the two functions of the United States Liquidation Commission was to dispose of the expeditionary property. Out of the sales transactions arose the largest single credit to the account of the United States on the international ledger: the proceeds from the bulk sale of A. E. F. installations and supplies to the French Government. The arguments sustaining the wisdom of a bulk sale of the expeditionary property have already been sufficiently rehearsed in this volume. The first step on our part leading to the negotiations was to take an inventory of the entire property. The difficulty encountered then may be deduced from the fact that the French and the British, whose surpluses were not inordinately greater than ours, never even attempted such an inventory of their own property. The A. E. F. was a going concern, continually drawing from the stocks on hand, and its _personnel_ was shifting and diminishing. Nevertheless, by a strong force of men, under the direction of Colonel J. H. Graham, Engineer Corps, in six weeks of day and night work, such an inventory was taken, the property being divided into eighteen categories, as follows: 1. Clothing and textiles; 2. Subsistence supplies; 3. Kitchen utensils and household furnishings; 4. Machinery, metals, tools, and hardware; 5. Building materials; 6. Forest products; 7. Railway and dock equipment; 8. Transport equipment (trucks, motor cars, motorcycles, wagons, horses and mules, etc.); 9. Hospital supplies, toilet supplies, and chemicals; 10. Photographic, measuring, and musical instruments; 11. Electrical equipment; 12. Oils, gasoline, and paints; 13. Ordnance and gas-warfare equipment; 14. Blasting apparatus and supplies; 15. Printing machinery and supplies; 16. Office fixtures, stationery, and supplies; 17. Hides and leather; 18. Aëronautical equipment.