provisional transfer of tonnage under the Brussels Agreement in connection with the supply of foodstuffs.117 Estimating the tonnage of German shipping to be taken over under the Treaty at 4,000,000 gross tons, and the average value per ton at $150 per ton, the total money value involved is $600,000,000.118
(c) Foreign Securities.—Prior to the census of foreign securities carried out by the German Government in September, 1916,119 of which the exact results have not been made public, no official return of such investments was ever called for in Germany, and the various unofficial estimates are confessedly based on insufficient data, such as the admission of foreign securities to the German Stock Exchanges, the receipts of the stamp duties, consular reports, etc. The principal German estimates current before the war are given in the appended footnote.120 This shows a general consensus of opinion among German authorities that their net foreign investments were upwards of $6,250,000,000. I take this figure as the basis of my calculations, although I believe it to be an exaggeration; $5,000,000,000 would probably be a safer figure.
Deductions from this aggregate total have to be made under four heads.
(i.) Investments in Allied countries and in the United States, which between them constitute a considerable part of the world, have been sequestrated by Public Trustees, Custodians of Enemy Property, and similar officials, and are not available for Reparation except in so far as they show a surplus over various private claims. Under the scheme for dealing with enemy debts outlined in Chapter IV., the first charge on these assets is the private claims of Allied against German nationals. It is unlikely, except in the United States, that there will be any appreciable surplus for any other purpose.
(ii.) Germany's most important fields of foreign investment before the war were not, like ours, oversea, but in Russia, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Roumania, and