Duties which had existed for five years prior to a country's entering the Union might be allowed to disappear gradually by equal instalments spread over the five years subsequent to joining the Union.
[161] The figures in this table are partly estimated, and are probably not completely accurate in detail; but they show the approximate figures with sufficient accuracy for the purposes of the present argument.

The British figures are taken from the White Paper of October 23, 1919 (Cmd.

377).

In any actual settlement, adjustments would be required in connection with certain loans of gold and also in other respects, and I am concerned in what follows with the broad principle only.

The total excludes loans raised by the United Kingdom on the market in the United States, and loans raised by France on the market in the United Kingdom or the United States, or from the Bank of England.
[162] This allows nothing for interest on the debt since the Bolshevik Revolution.
[163] No interest has been charged on the advances made to these countries.
[164] The actual total of loans by the United States up to date is very nearly $10,000,000,000, but I have not got the latest details.
[165] The financial history of the six months from the end of the summer of 1916 up to the entry of the United States into the war in April, 1917, remains to be written.