"Specific accomplishments of this character are, however, far from constituting a full measure of the results achieved by the War Trade Board. The elimination of enemy advantage from our trade and, to a considerable extent, from that of the world, the securing and conserving of commodities essential to ourselves and those associated with us in the war, the bringing of shipping generally into the services most useful to us--these results can not be accurately stated or appraised at the present time, nor have they been accomplished by any single act or agreement." [Illustration: Examining Cargoes for Contraband An inspector is using the X-ray on a bale of cotton, it having been found that smuggling of every conceivable sort was being carried by German agents.] THE TRADE LICENSE SYSTEM The United States trade license system was extremely effective in cutting off the business of firms whose controlling motive was the advancement of German commercial interests. It was largely directed against preventing pro-German firms in neutral countries from engaging in the re-exportation process, a familiar practice in the earlier part of the war. The policy of the War Trade Board is indicated in the March (1918) issue of the _War Trade Journal_: "To accomplish these results the War Trade Board, through its Bureau of Imports, has adopted certain regulations in connection with the importation of many of these raw materials, to which it is the duty of every patriotic American citizen to give complete and wholehearted support. "Organizations have been voluntarily created in many of the trades, such as rubber, wool, jute, tin, etc., to act as consignees when required and to perform other duties in connection with importations, under and by direction of the War Trade Board.