ABSTRACT
During the first World War the Allies discovered that close co-operation on economic affairs was just as essential to victory as joint military action. Within a few weeks of the outbreak of war the Allies established the Commission Internationale de Ravitaillement to pool the purchasing of the goods they required. From this commission there developed some twenty ‘programme committees’ which each dealt with particular groups of commodities. The most important organization of this kind was the Allied Maritime Transport Council which controlled shipping space. 1 By the end of the war about nine-tenths of the world’s ocean shipping came under the control of this body.
