The countries of Europe fall into two distinct groups at the present time as regards their manifestations of what is really the same evil throughout, according as they have been cut off from international intercourse by the Blockade, or have had their imports paid for out of the resources of their allies. I take Germany as typical of the first, and France and Italy of the second. The note circulation of Germany is about ten times[146] what it was before the war. The value of the mark in terms of gold is about one-eighth of its former value. As world-prices in terms of gold are more than double what they were, it follows that mark-prices inside Germany ought to be from sixteen to twenty times their pre-war level if they are to be in adjustment and proper conformity with prices outside Germany.[147] But this is not the case. In spite of a very great rise in German prices, they probably do not yet average much more than five times their former level, so far as staple commodities are concerned; and it is impossible that they should rise further except with a simultaneous and not less violent adjustment of the level of money wages. The existing maladjustment hinders in two ways (apart from other obstacles) that revival of the import trade which is the essential preliminary of the economic reconstruction of the country. In the first place, imported commodities are beyond the purchasing power of the great mass of the population,[148] and the flood of imports which might have been expected to succeed the raising of the blockade was not in fact commercially possible.[149] In the second place, it is a hazardous enterprise for a merchant or a manufacturer to purchase with a foreign credit material for which, when he has imported it or manufactured it, he will receive mark currency of a quite uncertain and possibly unrealizable value. This latter obstacle to the revival of trade is one which easily escapes notice and deserves a little attention. It is impossible at the present time to say what the mark will be worth in terms of foreign currency three or six months or a year hence, and the exchange market can quote no reliable figure. It may be the case, therefore, that a German merchant, careful of his future credit and reputation, who is actually offered a short period credit in terms of sterling or dollars, may be reluctant and doubtful whether to accept it. He will owe sterling or dollars, but he will sell his product for marks, and his power, when the time comes, to turn these marks into the currency in which he has to repay his debt is entirely problematic. Business loses its genuine character and becomes no better than a speculation in the exchanges, the fluctuations in which entirely obliterate the normal profits of commerce.