250 THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE ch.

shortly. And it would be greatly to be desired bytheir friends that France and Italy also should seetheir way to adhesion.

It would be objected, I suppose, by some criticsthat such an arrangement might go some way ineffect towards realising the former German dreamof Mittel-Europa . If other countries were so foolishas to remain outside the Union and to leave toG-ermany all its advantages, there might be sometruth in this. But an economic system, to whichevery one had the opportunity of belonging andwhich gave special privilege to none, is surelyabsolutely free from the objections of a privilegedand avowedly imperialistic scheme of exclusion anddiscrimination. Our attitude to these criticisms mustbe determined by our whole moral and emotionalreaction to the future of international relations andthe Peace of the World. If we take the view thatfor at least a generation to come Germany cannotbe trusted with even a modicum of prosperity, thatwhile all our recent Allies are angels of light, allour recent enemies, Germans, Austrians, Hungarians ,and the rest, are children of the devil, that year byyear Germany must be kept impoverished and herchildren starved and crippled, and that she must beringed round by enemies; then we shall reject all theproposals of this chapter, and particularly those whichmay assist Germany to regain a part of her formermaterial prosperity and find a means of livelihood for