If enemies had to be frightened by every exhibition of severity, it was not less imperative to gratify friends by every mark of generosity. As already noted, a Mixed Commission had been appointed under the old regime to indemnify out of the public purse the Venizelists who suffered during the Athens disturbances of 1 and 2 December, 1916. This body, after the expulsion of the King, was remodelled by the substitution of a Venizelist for the Royalist Greek member; was authorized to enlarge its purview so as to cover all losses occasioned, directly or indirectly, by Royalist resentment throughout the Kingdom throughout the six months' blockade--including even the cases of persons who, compelled to flee the country, were torpedoed in the course of their voyage; and was invested with powers of deciding unfettered by any legislation or by any obligation to give reasons for its decisions. Thanks to their unlimited scope and discretion, the Commissioners, after rejecting some 2,500 claims as fraudulent, were still able to admit 3,350 claims and to allot damages representing a total sum of just under seven million drachmas.[5] The number of old adherents confirmed in the faith through this expedient, however, was as nothing to the legions of proselytes won by the creation of new Government posts of every grade in every part of the Kingdom, by the facilities afforded in the transaction of all business over which the State had any control--which under existing conditions meant all important business--and by the favours of various sorts that were certain to reward devotion to the cause. Beside the steadily growing swarm of native parasites, profiteers, jobbers and adventurers who throve on the spoils of the public, marched a less numerous, but not less ravenous, host of foreign financiers, concession and contract hunters, to whom the interests of the State were freely bartered for support to the party in the Entente capitals. The economic exhaustion caused by this reckless waste of national wealth, in addition to the necessary war {213} expenditure, was concealed at the time partly by credits furnished to M. Venizelos in Paris and London, and partly by an artificial manipulation of the exchange for his sake. It became apparent when these political influences ceased to interfere with the normal working of financial laws. Then the Greek exchange, which at the outbreak of the European War stood at 26 or 27 drachmas to the pound sterling, and later was actually against London, dropped to 65, and by a rapid descent reached the level of 155. Thus in the domain of finance, as in every other, the valuable reconstructive achievement of 1909--which had led to the transformation of a deficit of from ten to twelve millions into a surplus of fifteen millions and to the accumulation of deposits that enabled the Greek exchange to withstand the shock of several conflicts--was demolished by its own architect.