v REPARATION 115

mensely deeper area of country over which thebattle swayed from time to time. It is a populardelusion to think of Belgium as the principal victimof the war; it will turn out, I believe, that takingaccount of casualties, loss of property, and burdenof future debt, Belgium has made the least relativesacrifice of all the belligerents except the UnitedStates. Of the Allies, Serbia 's sufferings and losshave been proportionately the greatest, and afterSerbia, France. France in all essentials was just asmuch the victim of German ambition as was Belgium ,and France 's entry into the war was just as un-avoidable. France , in my judgment, in spite of herpolicy at the Peace Conference, a policy largelytraceable to her sufferings, has the greatest claimson our generosity.

The special position occupied by Belgium in thepopular mind is due, of course, to the fact that in1914 her sacrifice was by far the greatest of anyof the Allies . But after 1914 she played a minorrole. Consequently, by the end of 1918, her relativesacrifices, apart from those sufferings from invasionwhich cannot be measured in money, had fallenbehind, and in some respects they were not even asgreat as, for example, Australia 's. I say this with nowish to evade the obligations towards Belgium underwhich the pronouncements of our responsible statesmenat many different dates have certainly laid us. GreatBritain ought not to seek any payment at all from