y

REPARATION

117

£120,000,000 at pre-war prices, or say £250,000,000at the present time, is much nearer the right figure.Estimates of the value of the land of France (apartfrom buildings) vary from £2480 million to £3116million, so that it would be extravagant to put thedamage on this head as high as £100 million. FarmCapital for the whole of France has not been put byresponsible authorities above £420 million. 1 Thereremain the loss of furniture and machinery, thedamage to the coal-mines and the transport system,and many other minor items. But these losses, how-ever serious, cannot be reckoned in value by hundredsof millions sterling in respect of so small a part ofFrance. In short, it will be difficult to establisha bill exceeding £500,000,000, for physical andmaterial damage in the occupied and devastatedareas of Northern France. 2 I am confirmed in this

1 For details of these and other figures, see Stamp, loc. cit.

2 Even when the extent of the material damage has been established,it will be exceedingly difficult to put a price on it, which must largelydepend on the period over which restoration is spread, and the methodsadopted. It would be impossible to make the damage good in a year ortwo at any price, and an attempt to do so at a rate which was excessive inrelation to the amount of labour and materials at hand might force pricesup to almost any level. We must, I think, assume a cost of labour andmaterials about equal to that current in the world generally, In point offact, hoAvever, we may safely assume that literal restoration will never beattempted. Indeed, it would be very wasteful to do so. Many of thetownships were old and unhealthy, and many of the hamlets miserable.To re-erect the same type of building in the same places would be foolish.As for the land, the wise course may be in some cases to leave long stripsof it to Nature for many years to come. An aggregate money sum shouldbe computed as fairly representing the value of the material damage, andFrance should be left to expend it in the manner she thinks wisest with aview to her economic enrichment as a whole. The first breeze of thiscontroversy has already blown through France . A long and inconclusive