Next on the list come cereals, leather goods, sugar, paper, furs, electrical goods, silk goods, and dyes. Cereals are not a net export and are far more than balanced by imports of the same commodities. As regards sugar, nearly 90 per cent of Germany's pre-war exports came to the United Kingdom.[128] An increase in this trade might be stimulated by a grant of a preference in this country to German sugar or by an arrangement by which sugar was taken in part payment for the indemnity on the same lines as has been proposed for coal, dyes, etc. Paper exports also might be capable of some increase. Leather goods, furs, and silks depend upon corresponding imports on the other side of the account. Silk goods are largely in competition with the trade of France and Italy. The remaining items are individually very small. I have heard it suggested that the indemnity might be paid to a great extent in potash and the like. But potash before the war represented 0.6 per cent of Germany's export trade, and about $15,000,000 in aggregate value. Besides, France, having secured a potash field in the territory which has been restored to her, will not welcome a great stimulation of the German exports of this material. An examination of the import list shows that 63.6 per cent are raw materials and food. The chief items of the former class, namely, cotton, wool, copper, hides, iron-ore, furs, silk, rubber, and tin, could not be much reduced without reacting on the export trade, and might have to be increased if the export trade was to be increased. Imports of food, namely, wheat, barley, coffee, eggs, rice, maize, and the like, present a different problem. It is unlikely that, apart from certain comforts, the consumption of food by the German laboring classes before the war was in excess of what was required for maximum efficiency; indeed, it probably fell short of that amount. Any substantial decrease in the imports of food would therefore react on the efficiency of the industrial population, and consequently on the volume of surplus exports which they could be forced to produce. It is hardly possible to insist on a greatly increased productivity of German industry if the workmen are to be underfed. But this may not be equally true of barley, coffee, eggs, and tobacco. If it were possible to enforce a rÈgime in which for the future no German drank beer or coffee, or smoked any tobacco, a substantial saving could be effected. Otherwise there seems little room for any significant reduction.