VII

REMEDIES

255

about £800,000,000. But these figures overstatethe loss to the United Kingdom and understate thegain to France ; for a large part of the loans madeby both these countries has been to Kussia andcannot, by any stretch of imagination, be consideredgood. If the loans which the United Kingdom hasmade to her Allies are reckoned to be worth 50 percent of their full value (an arbitrary but convenientassumption which the Chancellor of the Exchequerhas adopted on more than one occasion as being asgood as any other for the purposes of an approximatenational balance sheet), the operation would involveher neither in loss nor in gain. But in whateverway the net result is calculated on paper, the reliefin anxiety which such a liquidation of the positionwould carry with it would be very great. It isfrom the United States , therefore, that the proposalasks generosity.

Speaking with a very intimate knowledge of therelations throughout the war between the British ,the American , and the other Allied Treasuries, Ibelieve this to be an act of generosity for whichEurope can fairly ask, provided Europe is makingan honourable attempt in other directions, not tocontinue war, economic or otherwise, but to achievethe economic reconstitution of the whole Continent.The financial sacrifices of the United States havebeen, in proportion to her wealth, immensely lessthan those of the European States. This could