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REPARATION

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reply adds, " are bare questions of fact, namely, theamount of the liabilities, and they are susceptible ofbeing treated in this way."

If the promised negotiations are really conductedon these lines, they are not likely to be fruitful. Itwill not be much easier to arrive at an agreed figurebefore the end of 1919 than it was at the time of theConference; and it will not help Germany 's financialposition to know for certain that she is liable for thehuge sum which on any computation the Treaty liabilities must amount to. These negotiations dooffer, however, an opportunity of reopening the wholequestion of the Reparation payments, although it ishardly to be hoped that at so very early a date,public opinion in the countries of the Allies haschanged its mood sufficiently. 1

I cannot leave this subject as though its justtreatment wholly depended either on our own pledgesor on economic facts. The policy of reducing Germany to servitude for a generation, of degrading the livesof millions of human beings, and of depriving a wholenation of happiness should be abhorrent and detest-able,—abhorrent and detestable, even if it were pos-sible, even if it enriched ourselves, even if did not sowthe decay of the whole civilised life of Europe . Some

1 Owing to delays on the part of the Allies in ratifying the Treaty, theReparation Commission had not yet been formally constituted by the end ofOctober 1919. So far as I am aware, therefore, nothing has been done tomake the above offer effective. But perhaps, in view of the circumstances,there has been an extension of the date.

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