134 THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE CH,

national engagements ending in a definite breach ofone of the most sacred possible of such engagementson the part of the victorious champions of theseideals. 1

Apart from other aspects of the transaction, Ibelieve that the campaign for securing out of Germany the general costs of the war was one of the mostserious acts of political unwisdom for which ourstatesmen have ever been responsible. To what adifferent future Europe might have looked forward ifeither Mr. Lloyd George or Mr. Wilson had appre-hended that the most serious of the problems whichclaimed their attention were not political or territorialbut financial and economic, and that the perils of thefuture lay not in frontiers or sovereignties but infood, coal, and transport. Neither of them paidadequate attention to these problems at any stage ofthe Conference. But in any event the atmospherefor the wise and reasonable consideration of themwas hopelessly befogged by the commitments of theBritish delegation on the question of Indemnities.The hopes to which the Prime Minister had givenrise not only compelled him to advocate an unjustand unworkable economic basis to the Treaty with Germany , but set him at variance with the

1 Only after the most painful consideration have I written these words.The almost complete absence of protest from the leading Statesmen of Eng-land makes one feel that one must have made some mistake. But I believethat I know all the facts, and I can discover no such mistake. In any case, Ihave set forth all the relevant engagements in Chapter IV. and at the begin-ning of this chapter, so that the reader can form his own judgment.