The Cabinet then in power evinced no particular inclination, or at any rate no hurry, to fulfil obligations on this scale, but was more disposed to point out that it would be altogether impossible, for various reasons, to do so.
Moreover, the Peace of Brest had provided for a regular exchange system, bartering load by load of one article against another.

But neither Germany nor Austria-Hungary was even approximately in a position to furnish the goods (textiles especially were demanded) required in exchange.
We had then to endeavour to obtain the supplies on credit, and the Ukrainian Government agreed, after long and far from easy negotiations, to provide _credit valuta_ (against vouchers for mark and krone in Berlin and Vienna).

The arrangements for this were finally made, and the two Central Powers drew in all 643 million karbowanez.
The Rouble Syndicate, however, which had been formed under the leadership of the principal banks in Berlin, Vienna and Budapest, was during the first few months only able to exert a very slight activity.

Even the formation of this syndicate was a matter of great difficulty, and in particular a great deal of time was lost; and even then the apparatus proved very awkward to work with.
Anyhow, it had only procured comparatively small sums of roubles, so that the purchasing organisation in Ukraine, especially at first, suffered from a chronic lack of means of payment.
But, in any case, a better arrangement of the money question would only have improved matters in a few of the best supplied districts, for the principal obstacle was simply _the lack of supplies_.

The fact that Kieff and Odessa were themselves continually in danger of a food crisis is the best indication as to the state of things.
In the Ukraine, the effects of four years of war, with the resulting confusion, and of the destruction wrought by the Bolsheviks (November, 1917, to March, 1918) were conspicuously apparent; cultivation and harvesting had suffered everywhere, but where supplies had existed they had been partly destroyed, partly carried off by the Bolsheviks on their way northward.